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MAN'S SUPREME INHERITANCE 



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MAN'S SUPREME 
INHERITANCE 

BY 

F. MATTHIAS ALEXANDER 



PAUL R. REYNOLDS 

NEW YORK 

1910. 



.A55 



Copyright 1910 

by 
F. Matthias Alexander 



ICLA2781I5 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. 

I. From Primitive Conditions to Present Needs 
II. Primitive Remedies and Their Defects 

III. Sub-Consciousness and Inhibition 

IV. Conscious Control ..... 
V. Habits of Thought and of Body 

VI. Race Culture and the Training of the Children 
VII. A Postscript 



PAGE 

1 

12 
27 
49 
66 
98 
122 



THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF A NEW 
METHOD OF RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCA- 
TION— 

Introductory ....... 143 

I. The Theory of Respiratory Re-Education. 147 

II. Errors to be Avoided and Facts to be re- 
membered in the Theory and Practice 
of Respiratory Re-Education . . 157 

III. The Practice of Respiratory Re-Educa- 
tion 170 

Concluding Remarks ..... 180 



vi CONTENTS ' 

RE-EDUCATION OF THE KIN^oTHETIC SYS- 
TEMS— 
The Doctrines of Antagonistic Action and 

Mechanical Advantage .... 186 

A Presentation of Principles and Laws of the 
Re-Education of the Kinsesthetic Systems . 187 



INTRODUCTION 

AMONG my intimates I once numbered 
a boatman, known as Old Sol, or, 
to liis familiars, Sol, simply, without the 
courtesy title, for he was not notably old. 
I could not say whether his name was an 
abbreviated form of Solomon, nor if it were, 
whether the longer name was baptismal 
or conferred in later years as a tribute to 
his undoubted wisdom. I have thought it 
possible that the name was not an abbrevia- 
tion at all, but was descriptive of my friend's 
habit of optimism in regard to the weather. 
For to the cockney oarsman who doubtfully 
contemplated the meteorological conditions 
on the upper Thames Sol was unwavering 
in his encouragement. His certainty that 
the weather would clear and the sun come 



viii INTRODUCTION 

out was so inspiring that the pale-faced 
Londoner cheerfully faced the most un- 
promising outlook, and started out on his 
uncertain course up-stream buoyed with a 
beautiful confidence in old Sol's infalli- 
bility. But for me and for his other inti- 
mates, regular clients whose custom was not 
dependent on the chances of a fine week-end, 
Sol had another method. In answer to the 
usual question, 'Well, Sol, what's it going 
to do?' he would first look up into the 
sky, and then step to the edge of the land- 
ing-stage and study so much of the horizon 
as was within his limit of vision; after this 
careful survey he would deliver his opinion, 
judicially, and I rarely found him at fault 
in his prophecy. 

Facing my critics, lay and professional, 
I wish at the outset to disclaim the methods 
by which Sol invigorated the casual amateur. 
I am not prophesying unlimited sunshine 



INTRODUCTION ix 

for every one, without regard to conditions. 
In this brochure will be found no mention 
of royal roads, panaceas, or grand specifics. 
Rather I have attempted to treat every 
reader as Sol treated his intimates. I have 
looked into the sky and made a careful 
survey of the horizon. It is true that I 
have seen an ideal and the promise of its 
fulfilment, but my deductions have been 
drawn with patient care from signs which 
I have studied with diligence; if I am an 
optimist, it is because I see the promise of 
fair weather, and not because I wish to 
delude the unwary. And with this I will 
lay down my metaphor and come to a 
practical statement. 

I know that I shall be regarded in many 
quarters as a revolutionary and a heretic, 
for my theory and practice, though founded 
on a principle as old as the life of man, 
are not in accord with, nor even a develop- 



x INTRODUCTION 

ment of, the tradition which still obtains. 
But in thus rejecting tradition I am, happily, 
sustained by something more than an un- 
proved theory. Moreover, on this firm 
ground I do not stand alone. Though my 
theory may appear revolutionary and heret- 
ical, it is shared by men of attainment 
in science and medicine. On a small scale 
I have made many converts, and in now 
making appeal to a wider circle I am upheld 
by the knowledge that what I have to say can 
no longer be classed as an isolated opinion. 
Not that I should have hesitated to come 
forward now, even if I had been without 
support. During the past six years I have 
built up a practice in London which has 
reached the bounds of my capacity. This 
work has not been done by any advance- 
ment of a wavering hypothesis. I have had 
cases brought to me as the result of the 
failure of many kinds of treatment, of rest 



INTRODUCTION xi 

cures, relaxation cures, hypnotism, faith 
cures, physical culture, and the ordinary 
medical prescriptions — and in the treatment 
of these cases, in my own observations, and 
in the appreciation of the patients them- 
selves, I have had abundant opportunity 
to prove to my own satisfaction that in its 
application to present needs my theory 
has stood the test of practice in every 
circumstance and condition. 

That the limits imposed by the present 
work render it wofully inadequate I am quite 
willing to admit, but the necessity for a cer- 
tain urgency has been forced upon me, and 
I haye deemed it wiser to outline my subject 
at once rather than wait for the time when 
1 shall be ready to publish my larger work, 
and I have at the same time reprinted in 
this brochure two earlier pamphlets, namely 
one on Respiratory Re-Education and one 
on the Kinesthetic Systems. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

With regard to the larger work I can say 
little here, save that it will be the natural 
continuation of this brochure which may 
well serve as a preface. I have, now, 
space sufficient only to indicate the founda- 
tions of my belief, but I hope very soon to 
present the superstructure complete in every 
detail. In this brochure I have confined 
myself to the primary argument and indi- 
cated the direction in which we may find 
physical completeness. In the work which 
will follow I will deal with the detailed 
evidence of the application of my theory to 
life, of cases and cures, and all the substance 
of experience. 

There are, however, many reasons why 
I should hesitate no longer in making my 
preliminary appeal, and chief among them 
is the appalling physical deterioration that 
can be seen by any intelligent observer 
who will walk the streets of London, for 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

example, and note the form and aspect of 
the average individuals who make up the 
crowd. So much for the surface. What 
inferences can we not draw from the 
statistics? What are we to make of the dis- 
proportionate increase of insanity, cancer, 
and appendicitis, which appears undeniable, 
to take these three instances only? For the 
increase progresses despite the fact that we 
have taken the subject seriously to heart. 
Now I would not fall into the common 
fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc, and say 
that because the increase of these evils 
has gone hand-in-hand with our endeavours 
to raise the standard by physical-culture 
theories, relaxation exercises, rest cures, 
and hoc genus omne, therefore the one is the 
result of the other; but I do maintain — 
lacking more definite proof on the first point 
— that if physical culture exercises, etc., 
had done all that they were hoped to do, 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

they must be considered a complete failure 
in the checking of the three evils I have 
instanced. 

Are these troubles still to increase, then? 
Are we to wait while the bacteriologist 
patiently investigates the nature of these 

m 

diseases, till he triumphantly isolates some 
characteristic germ and announces that 
here, at last, is the dread bacillus of cancer? 
Should we even then be any nearer a cure? 
Could we rely on inoculation, and if we could, 
in this case, what is to be the end? Are 
we to be inoculated against every known 
disease till our bodies become depressed 
and enervated sterilities, incapable of action 
on their own account? I pray not, for such 
a physical condition would imply a mental 
condition even more pitiable. The science 
of bacteriology has its uses, but they are 
the uses of research rather than of applica- 
tion. Bacteriology reveals the agents active 



INTRODUCTION xv 

in disease, but it says nothing about the 
conditions which permit these agents to 
become active. Therefore I look to that 
wonderful instrument, the human body, 
for the true solution of our difficulty, an 
instrument so inimitably adaptable, so full 
of marvellous potentialities of resistance and 
recuperation that it is able, when properly 
used, to overcome all the forces of disease. 

In this thing I do not address myself to 
any one class or section of the community. 
I have tried in what follows to avoid, so far 
as may be, any terminology, any medical 
or scientific phrases and technicalities, and 
to speak to the entire intelligent public. ] 
wish the scheme I have here adumbrated 
to be taken up universally, and not to be 
restricted to the advantage of any body, 
medical or otherwise. I wish to do away 
with such teachers as I am myself. My 
place in the present economy is due to 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

a misunderstanding of the causes of our 
present physical disability, and when this 
disability is finally eliminated, the special- 
ized practitioner will have no place, no uses. 
This may be a dream of the future, but in its 
beginnings it is now capable of realization. 
Every man, woman and child holds the 
possibility of physical perfection; it rests 
with each of us to attain it *by personal 
understanding and effort. 

F. Matthias Alexander 

22 Army and Navy Mansions, 
Victoria Street, SW. 



MAN'S SUPREME INHERITANCE 



FROM PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS TO 
PRESENT NEEDS 

'Our contemporaries of this and the rising generation appear to 
he hardly aware that we are witnessing the last act of a long drama, 
a tragedy and a comedy in one, which is being silently played, with 
no fanfare or trumpets or roll of drums, before our eyes on the 
stage of history. Whatever becomes of the savages, the curtain 
must descend on savagery for ever.' — J. G. Frazer 

A | AHE long process of evolution still 
-*- moves quietly to its unknown accom- 
plishment; struggle and starvation, the hard 
fight for existence working with fine impar- 
tiality, remorselessly eliminates the weak 
and defective; new variations are devel- 
oped and old types no further adaptable 
become extinct, and thus life fighting for 
life improves towards a sublimation we 



2 FROM PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS 
The birth canno t foresee. But at some period of the 

of mtel- x 

ibTrektilm world's history an offshoot of a dominant 
tion. type began to develop new powers that 

were destined to change the face of the 
world. What first influenced the trend of 
that new development we can only guess, 
dimly. It may have been as a modern 
French writer 1 suggests, that courage was 
a determining factor, a suggestion that is 
at once consistent with our surmises as to 
the prevailing conditions and acceptable 
to our intellectual pride. Whatever the 
influence which first begot these new powers, 
they held strange potentialities, and, among 
others, that which now immediately con- 
cerns us — the potentiality to counteract the 
force of evolution itself. 

This is, indeed, at once the greatest 
triumph of our intellectual growth and the 

l Notre Pere des Bois, La Foret Nuptiale, La Caverne, par Ray 
Nyst. (Paris, 1900, etc.) 



TO PRESENT NEEDS 3 

self-constituted danger which threatens us 
from within. Man has arisen above nature, 
bent circumstance to his will, and striven 
in antagonism to the mighty force of evolu- 
tion. He has pried into the great workshop Man . s in . 

tellectual 

and interfered with the machinery, en- ambition is 

not yet 

deavouring to become master of -its action realizable, 
and to control the workings of its com- 
ponent parts. But the machine has as yet 
proved too intricate for his complete com- 
prehension, slowly he has learned the uses 
of a few parts which he is able to operate, 
but it is only a small fraction of the whole. 
What then is man's position to-day, and 
what is his danger? His position is this: 
Bv emerging from the contest with nature Man has 

J ° ° ceased to be 

he has ceased to be a natural animal. He ^ nim a a t 1 ural 
has evolved curious powers of discrimina- 
tion, of choice, and of construction. He has 
changed his environment, his food, and his 
whole manner of living. He has inquired 



4 FROM PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS 

into the laws which govern heredity and into 
the causes of disease. But still his knowl- 
edge is limited, and his emergence incom- 
plete. The power of the force we know as 
evolution still holds him in chains, though 
man has loosened his bonds and may at 
last free himself entirely. Thus we come to 
man's danger. 

Evolution — a term we use here and else- 
where in this connection as that which is best 
understood to indicate the whole operation 
of natural selection and all that it connotes — 
has two clearly denned functions : by the one 
Two of these it develops; by the other destroys. 

functions 

of evoiu- By an infinitely slow action it has developed 

tion. 

such wonders as the human eye or hand; 
by a process somewhat less tedious it allows 
any organ that has become useless to perish, 
such as the pineal eye or (in process) the 
vermiform appendix, and if we can estimate 
the future course, the teeth and hair. 



TO PRESENT NEEDS 5 

By the change he has effected in his mode 
of life, man is no longer necessarily de- 
pendent upon his physical organism for the 
means of his subsistence, and in cases where 
he is still so dependent, such as those of the £ t c h h e a ^ 8 L de 
agriculturist, the artisan, and others who necessi 

tates 

earn a living bv manual labour, he employs changes in 

the use of 

his muscles in new ways, in mechanical P h y sical 

J ' organs. 

repetitions of the same act, or in modes of 
labour which are far removed from those 
called forth by primitive conditions. In 
some ways the physical type which repre- 
sents the rural labouring population is, 
in my opinion, even more degenerate than 
the type we find in cities, and mentally 
there can be no comparison between the two. 
The truth is that man, whether living in 
town or country, has changed his habitat 
and with it his habits, and in so doing has 
put himself in a new danger, for though 
evolution may be cruel in its methods, it 



6 FROM PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS 

is the cruelty of a discipline without which 
our bodies become relaxed, our muscles 
atrophied, and our functions put out of gear. 
The antagonism of conscious as opposed 
to natural selection 1 has now been in 
existence for many thousands of years, but 
it is only within the last century or less that 
the effect upon man's constitution has 
become so marked that this danger of 
deterioration or decay has been thrust upon 
the attention, not only of scientific observers, 
but of the average, intelligent individual. 
No examination of history is necessary in 



l It should, however, be clearly understood in this connection that 
certain laws of natural selection must, so far as we can see, always 
hold good; and it would not be advisable to alter them even if it were 
possible. For example, that curious law may be cited which ordains 
the attraction of opposites in mating and so maintains nature's 
average. The attraction which a certain type of woman has for a 
certain type of man, and vice versa, is, in my opinion, a fundamental 
law, and any attempt to regulate it would be harmful to the race. 
This, however, is no argument against the regulation or prevention 
of marriages between the physically and mentally unfit. 



' TO PRESENT NEEDS 7 

this place to set out a reason for this com- 
paratively sudden realisation of physical 
unfitness. Briefly, the civilization of the 
past hundred years has been unlike the 
many that have preceded it in that it has 

not been confined to any single nation or Civi]i2a 

it ** on as a 
empire. In the past history of the world factor in 

physical 

an intellectual civilization such as that of develop 

ment and 

Egypt, Persia, Greece, or Rome, perished ^genera 
from internal causes, and chief among them 
was a moral and physical deterioration 
which rendered the nation unequal to a 
struggle with younger, more vigorous and 
— this is important — wilder, more natural 
peoples. Thus we have good cause for 
believing that the danger we have indicated, 
though still incipient only, was a determin- 
ing cause in the downfall oT past civilizations. 
But we must not overlook the fact that 
destructive wars and devastating plagues 
held sway in the earlier history of mankind, 



8 FROM PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS 

and while the latter acted as an instrument 
of evolution in destroying the unfit, the 
former by decreasing the population threw 
a burden of initiative and energy on the 
remnant, necessitating the use of active, 
physical qualities in the business of all kinds 
of production. 

Now the conditions have altered. Greater 

scientific attainments in every direction than 

have ever been known, have combated, 

o^modTm an ^ will probably in the future overcome 

in its reia- the devastating diseases which have deci- 

tion to dis- 
ease and mated the populations of cities ; while a 

war. 

higher ethical ideal tends ever to oppose 
the horrible and repugnant barbarism of 
war which, as civilization grows, constantly 
spreading, even to the peoples of the Orient, 
becomes to our senses more and more 
fratricidal, a fight of brother against brother. 
A hundred years ago, Malthus, a prophet, 
if not a seer, recognised our danger, and 



TO PRESENT NEEDS 9 

within the past quarter of a century a dozen 
theorists have proposed remedies less strin- 
gent than those proposed by Malthus, And re " 
but almost equally futile. Among the nowlan- 
theorists are those reactionaries (consciously weiinigh 

impossible. 

or unconsciously) who advocate the simple 
life by a return to natural food and con- 
ditions, in endlessly various suggestions. 
To them in their search for natural foods 
and conditions we would point out that 
countless generations separate us from 
primitive man, a lapse of time during which 
our functions have become gradually adapted 
to new habits and environment; and that 
if it were possible by universal agreement 
for the peoples of Europe to return in- 
stantly to primitive methods of living, 
the effect would be no less disastrous than 
the reversal of the process, the sudden 
thrusting of our civilization upon savage 
tribes whereby — to quote one or two recent 



10 FROM PRIMITIVE CONDITIONS 

examples only — the aborigines of North 
America, New Zealand, and Japan (the 
Ainu tribes) have become, or are rapidly 
becoming, extinct. 

When we point out man's power of 

adaptability in this connection, therefore, 

the emphasis is thrown on the slowness 

The slow- with which that adaptability is passed on 

ness of the 

hereditary ^o our descendants and the relative perman- 

process and 

e ence of the new powers acquired. For 
our purpose the argument remains good 
whether we admit or deny, the inheritability 
of acquired charcteristics, our point being 
that in either case the process is necessarily 
a slow one, though it is plainly more rapid 
if the hypothesis be true. 1 

It becomes necessary, if we would be 
consistent, to reject at once all propositions 
for improving our future well-being, which 

i For a further statement of one aspect of heredity see chapter vi. 
of this brochure. 



perman 
ence. 



TO PRESENT NEEDS 11 

can by any possibility be described as T , he hope 

•> * r J of progress 

reactionary. Even in this brief resume of sustained 

by re- 
man 's history one tendency stands out actuary 

prescrip- 

clearly enough, the tendency to advance. tions - 
When that first offshoot from a dominant 
type began to develop new powers of intel- 
lect a form was initiated which must either 
progress or perish. Atavism must be 
counteracted by the powers of the mind, 
and reaction is a form of atavism. No 
return to earlier conditions can increase 
our knowledge of the secret springs of life, 
can aid our formulation of world-laws by 
the understanding of which we may hope 
to control the future course of development. 
In the mind of man lies the secret of his 
ability to resist, to conquer and finally to ^ hope 
govern the circumstance of his life, and only is sustained 

by the 

by the discovery of that secret will he ever develop- 
ment of 

be able to realize completely the perfect J^SSST^ 
condition of mens sana in corpore sano. 



12 PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 



II 

PRIMITIVE REMEDIES AND THEIR 
DEFECTS 

' . . . Having heard that Henry Taylor was ill, Carlyle rushed 
off from London to Sheen with a bottle of medicine, which had 
done Mrs. Carlyle good, without in the least knowing what was 
ailing Henry Taylor, or for what the medicine was useful.' — 
Life of Tennyson. 

fTTMIE danger of mental, nervous, and 
-*■ muscular debility, the outcome of 

the conditions which obtain as the result 
The danger °^ the trend of our development, has been 
degenera- widely recognized during the past fifty years, 

tion is now 

widely and we must turn aside for a moment to 

recognized. 

consider certain phases of its treatment as 
indicated by the well-known and widely 
applied terms 'physical culture,' 'relaxa- 
tion,' and 'deep-breathing.' 



AND THEIR DEFECTS 13 

With regard to 'physical culture/ it must 
be clearly understood that I do not allude 
to any one system of practice, but speak 
in the widest terms, terms which are appli- 
cable alike to the most primitive forms of 
dumb-bell exercise, or to the most elaborate 
series of evolutions designed to counteract 'Physical 

culture' 

the effect of a particular malady. (But lest defined 
my application of the term be misunderstood, 
I will define that 'physical-culture,' where 
so written and between inverted commas, 
stands for 'a series of mechanical exercises, 
simple or complicated, designed to strengthen 
a bodily function by the development of a 
set of muscles or of the complete system of 
muscles ' ; but when I use the words physical 
culture, currently and without a hyphen, 
I denote a general system for the improve- 
ment of the entire physical economy, by 
a just co-ordination and control of all the 
parts of the system, particularly excluding 



14 PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 

any method which tends to the hypertrophy 
of any one energy without regard to the 
balance of the whole). 

In the first place it will be recognized 
from what I have already said that the whole 
theory upon which the present 'physical- 
culture' school is based is but another 
aspect of the reversion to nature which we 
have stigmatized as a form of atavism, 
•physical- It is an attempt to stiffen the new garment 

culture,' as 

defined, is f our intellectual development by lining 

an attempt 

to make an •£ with the old fabric of so-called nature 

impossible 

premise, exercise. 'Physical-culture,' as defined, is 
what one might term the obvious, unin- 
spired method which naturally presents it- 
self as a remedy for the ills arising from an 
artificial condition. The logic of it is of 
the simplest, and arises from the major 
premise that bodily defects arise from the 
disuse and misuse of muscles and energies 
in an artificial civilization, which muscles 



AND THEIR DEFECTS 15 

and energies in a natural state are continu- 
ally being called upon to provide the means 
of livelihood. 

From this it seems obvious to argue that 
if we contrive an artificial mechanical means 
of exercising these muscles for, say, one, 
two, or three hours a day, they will resume 
their natural functions, and so ... . The 
lacuna cannot be satisfactorily filled. If 
we carry on the argument to its logical 
conclusion the falacy is made evident. 
For the method arising from this argument And the 

" " argument 

creates civil war within the body. There ™^ p J s ort 
is no co-ordination, and the outcome must 
be strife; but the point will be made clearer 
by an instance which must be taken to rep- 
resent a broadly typical case, an allegory 
rather than a special example of particular 
application. 

Let us take the case of, say, John Doe, 
whose work keeps him indoors from nine a. m. 



16 PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 

to six p. m v and makes a very urgent call 
The hypo- upon his mental and nervous powers. By 

thetical . . 

case of the time he is thirty-five, possibly five 

John Doe. 

or ten years sooner, John Doe is suffering 
from anaemia, indigestion, nervous debility, 
lassitude, insomnia, heart weakness, and 
heaven only knows what other troubles. 
His bodily functions are irregular, his mus- 
cular system partly atrophied and un- 
responsive, his nerves irritated, and, there 
is really no better word, 'jumpy.' 

Incidentally I must note, also, that his 
mind is inoperative in many directions. 
He has a bad mental attitude towards the 
physical acts of everyday life. For him 
his body is a mechanism (the intricate 
workings of which he never pauses to 
examine) to be driven or forced through a 
certain series of evolutions similar in kind 
to those it has always performed within 
his experience, and when this mechanism 



AND THEIR DEFECTS 17 

fails it is to be forced on again by tonics 
and stimulants or given a 'rest,' which is 
followed by a return to the old methods of 
propulsion. 

However, John Doe, who has postponed 
seeking a remedy already far too long, at 
last takes a course of 'physical-culture,' 
but his time is severely limited, and his 
exercises are confined to an hour or two 
morning and evening. At first he may say 
that he feels a wonderful benefit and prob- 
ably advises every friend he meets in the 
city to follow his example. I am quite 
willing to grant that Doe may be benefited, 
I will even admit that if he continues his John Doe's 

exercises 

exercises, it is possible he may not fall back require 

L J that his 

into the same state of nervous prostration b ° dy , . .. 

^ should live 

into which he fell originally ; but what I r ate exist- 

ences 

wish to make quite clear is that his cure did which are 

not mutu- 

not in itself possess the elements of perman- ^ agree " 
ence, that it was merely a tinkering or 



18 PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 

botching of the fabric of his body. For if 
we consider his case from a purely de- 
tached standpoint we must see that Doe 
has attempted to develop two systems or 
modes of life which were not mutually 
agreeable. On the one hand, for two, three, 
or four hours a day, he was occupied in 
mechanically developing his muscular sys- 
tem without making any difference in the 
manner in which he drove his machine, 
and stimulating and accelerating the supply 
of blood which therefore required increased 
oxygenation or reinforced lung power; he 
was, in brief, exercising those functions 
and energies which in a primitive state 
would have been called upon during the 
greater part of his waking life to supply 
him with food. On the other hand, for the 
remaining twelve hours or so during which 
he was engaged in the business of his profes- 
sion, in the eating of meals and in reading, 



AND THEIR DEFECTS 19 

playing indoor games, or in similar sedentary- 
occupations, the newly developed powers 
were being neglected, and a call was made 
upon the old nervous energies and centres 
of control. John Doe's physical body thus 
had two existences — excluding the natural 
condition of sleep — one fiercely active, mus- 
cular, dynamic ; the other sedentary, nervous, 
static. 

These two existences are not corre- 
lated, they are antagonistic, they do not 
mutually support each other, they conflict. 
John Doe's body becomes the scene of a These two 

existences 

civil war, and the heart, lungs, and other are > indeed 

antagon- 

semi-automatic organs are in a state of istlc " 
perpetual readjustment to opposing con- 
ditions, as they are called upon to support 
one side or the other in the perpetual com- 
bat. Such a condition cannot tend in the 
long run to the improvement of mankind as 
a whole. 



20 PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 

For, as I shall show later, 1 in the case of 

John Doe, and in all parallel cases, the 

consciousness of the person concerned is not 

The chief changed in regard to the use of the muscular 

point in 

which these mechanism. Let him exercise even for six 

exercises 

fail - hours daily, yet immediately on taking up 

his ordinary occupations once more, he will 
revert to the same muscular habits he has 
already acquired in connection with such 
occupations. It is not difficult to see that 
John Doe has a wrong mental attitude, 
towards the uses of his muscular mechanism 
in the acts of everyday life. He has been 
using muscles to do work for which they 
were never intended, while others, which 
should have been continuously employed, 
remain undeveloped, inert, imperfectly con- 
trolled. He is, in truth, suffering from 
mental and physical delusions with regard 

1 For a fuller analysis of this see p. 77 et seq. of this 
brochure. 



AND THEIR DEFECTS 21 

to the uses of his body. To quote but one 
of a dozen instances of his lack of recogni- 
tion of the true uses and functions of his 
muscular system, we shall notice that when 
he thrusts his head forward or throws it 
back, his shoulders always accompany the 
movement in either direction, this move- 
ment of the shoulders being entirely un- 
conscious, and made without any recog- 
nition of the fact that they are being moved. 
Now, in this condition of mental and physical 
delusion, the unfortunate man tries to do 
something with these mechanisms which he 
is unable to control, in the hope that by 
merely performing certain physical exercises, 
he can restore his body to a condition of 
perfect physical health. 

Some perception of the evils we have 
thus briefly summarized has ben awakened 
in the minds of the more earnest thinkers 
during the last few years, and as a result 



22 



PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 



ftluare'of ^ ne systems of exercises display a clearly 
cises is marked tendency towards modification, they 

becoming 

clearer have lessened their muscle-tensing violence, 

every day 

is evi- an( j have become, and are becoming, ever 

denced by 

ti method l ess an d less strenuous physical acts. Thus 
by the we find 'physical-culture' advocates who a 

advocates 

of 'phys- few years ago insisted upon the use of dumb- 

ical-cul- 

ture.* bells — in some cases dumb-bells increasing 
in weight over a graduated series of exer- 
cises — now emphasize the necessity for 
gentle exercises, and the dumb-bell is not 
mentioned, which is, perhaps, as good a 
proof as any of the truth of my contentions. 
My next instance, namely, 'relaxation,' 
is even less efficient. The usual procedure 
is to instruct the pupil (who is either sitting 
or lying on the floor) to relax, or to do what 
he (or she) understands by relaxing. The 
result is invariably collapse. For relaxation 
really means a due tension of the parts 
of the muscular system intended by nature 



The in- 
herent 
weakness 
of the 
'Relaxa- 
tion' 
system. 



AND THEIR DEFECTS 23 

to be constantly more or less tensed, to- 
gether with a relaxation of those parts 
intended by nature to be more or less re- 
laxed, a condition which is readily secured 
in practice by adopting what I have called 
in my other writings, the position of 
mechanical advantage. 1 But, apart from 
an incorrect understanding of the proper 
condition natural to the various muscles, 
the theory of relaxation, like that of the rest 
cure, makes a wrong assumption, and if 
either system is persisted in, there must 
inevitably follow a general lowering of 
vitality, which will be felt the moment 
regular duties are taken up again, and which 
will soon bring about the return of the old 
troubles in an exaggerated form. 

The last remedy mentioned at the opening 
of this chapter was 'deep-breathing.' This 

l See 'Re-education of the Kinesthetic Systems' incorporated in 
this volume, p. 107 et seq. 



24 PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 

£eathin? P * s a ^er form of 'physical-culture' develop- 
effects ment, and is, in effect, a modification in the 

rather than . . . 

causes. right direction. It is the consistent out- 
come of the perception that strenuous, 
forcing, muscular exercises were resulting 
in new and possibly greater evils than those 
they professed to cure. 'Deep-breathing' 
is indeed a step in the right direction, but 
only a step, because, while it does not 
always do serious harm, and in some in- 
stances, perhaps, a certain amount of good, 
it does not go to the root of the matter, the 
eradication of defects; nor take cognisance 
of the most important factor in the scheme 
of physical co-ordination. What the radi- 
cal factor is I shall deal with in detail 
in my next chapter, but I will first glance 
briefly over the chief phases of the argument 
so far as it has been unfolded. 

In imagination we have seen man through 
the darkness which covers his first appear- 



AND THEIR DEFECTS 25 

ance on the earth, the early Miocene man. 
As we have figured him he was a creature 
of simple needs, and of a vigorous bodily- 
habit, an animal in all save that spark of 
self-consciousness which burned feebly in 
his primitive, but increasing and differen- 
tiating brain. Again we have a somewhat A Resume 
clearer vision of him with wider powers of 
courage and cunning, adapting weapons 
to his use, and so specializing the functions 
of his mind through a long two million 
years, through palaeolithic and neolithic 
periods into the age of bronze where he has 
become a reasoning, designing creature, with 
powers of imagination and idealization 
which are still turned, however, to physical 
uses. 

And, at last, we reach the differentiation 
of man from man and class from class which 

Man as a 

marks the historical period of civilization, ™" oranB ' 
the period of dwelling in cities, the adapta- being. 



26 PRIMITIVE REMEDIES 

bility to new and specialized habits, of 
labour that makes little or no call upon the 
physical capacities, of food procured without 
energy; the period when the slow process 
of evolution, which has resulted in the 
product of a new and marvellous instrument 
of self-conscious, directive powers, was be- 
coming gradually superseded by that which 
it had brought forth. 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 27 



III 

SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND 
INHIBITION 

'You can have neither a greater nor a less dominion than that 
over yourself/ — Leonardo da Vinci. 

t T J ITHIN thirty years we have evolved 
* * a new science, the science of psy- 
chology. A generation since psychology 
was subject-matter only for the philosopher, 
the metaphysician, the poet, or the eccle- 
siastic, now it is being investigated in the 
laboratory by tests of sensibility, reaction- 
times and other responses to stimulation 
too technical to be explained here ; tests i° og ^ syc 
carried out by means of elaborate and 
intricate instruments and machinery de- 
signed to weigh the hidden springs of life 
in the balance. The phrase I have italicized 



The science 



28 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

is purposely vague, for I have no wish to 
fall foul of a terminology, nor to make any 
a priori assumption which might involve 
me in controversial matters completely out- 
side my province. At the same time, I see 
clearly that some convenient phrase will 
become necessary, and I will therefore adopt 
one which is at least familiar and within 
certain limits descriptive enough, namely, 
the 'sub-conscious self.' 

It may seem strange that one should look 
to any formally organized science, such as 
psychology now is to a science working in 
a laboratory with mechanical appliances, 
for any elucidation of a question which has 
for so long been regarded as strictly within 
the domain of the priest. But science, as 
Tyndal said, is only another name for 
common-sense, and a little consideration 
will show that the postulate I have insisted 
upon, namely, the growth and progress of 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 29 

intellectual control, demands that this ad- 
mirable quality of common-sense, or reason, 

should be applied to the elucidation of this 

J 
all-important problem. Unhappily, psychol- psycho- 
logy as an 

ogy, from which we hope so much, is yet organized 

science is 

in its infancy, and therefore, though I stm in its 
would be guided as far as possible by its 
methods, I must transcend its present limits 
in the consideration of the sub-conscious 
self. 

The concepts which have grown up round 
this designation are, in many cases, curiously 
concrete in form. Much error has sprung 
from that earnest and well-intentioned work 
of the late F. W. H. Myers, Human Person- 



ality and its Survival after Bodily Death. cc 



The 'sub- 

cons< 

self.' 

Mr. Myers figured an entity within an entity ; 
and his work, though inductive in form, 
was a priori in method, for he had con- 
ceived the picture of a subjective personality 
taking shape within an objective, material 



30 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

shell, and controlled his evidence to a definite, 
preconceived end. 

The fallacies of Myers have been exposed 
again and again; his argument is intrinsi- 
cally unsound, and when put to the test of 
newer knowledge his hypothesis fails to 
explain the fact. But because Myers' con- 
ception was so graphic and credible it took 
a strong hold upon the popular imagination, 
a hold, which the eight years following the 
publication of Human Personality has not 
weakened in the minds of a great number 
of people, full though these years have been 
of discovery and new knowledge. It is for 
this reason that I have reverted to Myers' 
The con- conception of the sub-conscious, or, as he 

ception of 

what is called it, 'sub-liminal self,' inasmuch as I 

termed the 

sdouTseif w i sn ^ to be c l ear ly understood from the 
dissent outset that I use the designation to denote 

from that 

of Myers an entirely different concept. Indeed, any- 

and his 

followers. one W ^ Q -^ as followed my argument to this 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 31 

point must have inferred the trend of my 
purpose, namely, that as the intellectual 
powers of man extend, we progress in the 
direction of conscious control. The gradual 
control of evolution by the child of its pro- 
duction, has pointed always to this end, and 
by this means, and by this alone, can the 
human race continue in the full enjoyment 
of its physical powers and forfeit no fraction 
of its progressive intellectual ideal. 

It will inevitably be asked at this stage 
what I intend when I speak of that which 
I have consented to designate the * sub- 
conscious self,' and I must therefore answer 
that question to the best of my ability, 
even though I have to leave for a moment 
the limits of proved fact and tread on the 
wider ground of hypothesis. I do not pur- 
pose, however, to overburden my theory with 
the detail of evidence, and what follows 
must therefore be taken as an inclusive 



32 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

statement, much of which I could prove 
conclusively in a larger work, while the un- 
proved remnant must necessarily await con- 
firmation from the researches of future in- 
vestigators in the domains of psychology. 
Briefly then we must see that the sub- 
conscious self is not a possession peculiar 
to man, but that it is in fact more active, 
in many ways more finely developed in the 
animal world. In some animals the con- 
sciousness of danger is so keen that we 
have attributed it to prescience. The fear 
of fire (in the prairies), of flood, or of the 
advance of some natural danger threatening 
Animals in the existence of the animal, is evidenced far 
state are ahead of any signs perceptible by human 

governed 

almost ex- senses, and since we cannot (except senti- 

clusively 

by this mentally) attribute powers of conscious rea- 
soning to the animal world, it is evident 
that this 'fore-knowledge' is due to a 
delicate co-ordination of animal senses. 



sciousness. 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 33 

Again we see that animals which, have not 
had their powers dulled by many genera- 
tions of domestication make the majority 
of their movements, as we say, 'instinctively.' 
They can judge the length of a leap with 
astonishing accuracy, or take the one certain 
chance of escape among the many apparent 
possibilites open to them without an in- 
staint's hesitation; and these powers are 
evidenced in many cases within a few hours 
or minutes after the birth of the animal; 
they are admittedly not the outcome of 
experience. 

The whole argument for the evidence of 
the possession of a sub-conscious self by 
animals can be elaborated to any length, 
and depends upon facts of observation made 
over a long period of time. The few ex- 
amples I have here cited merely illustrate 
that side of the question which throws into 
prominence the point of what we may call 



34 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

abnormal powers, or powers which seem to 

transcend those of human reason so far as 

M y ers ' it has been developed. It is this appear- 

argument 

t*ivai h of SUr ance of transcendent qualities in the human 
applies, sub-consciousness which misled Myers, who 

therefore, 

with equal did not pause to apply his allegory of the 

or greater 

force to the sub-conscious entity to the animal world, 

animal 

an application which would have tended to 
prove that the 'soul' (for that is what 
Myers really intended, however carefully 
he may have avoided the actual word) of the 
animal was more highly developed than that 
of man. 
I may, however, assume that the point 
The differ- has been already sufficiently demonstrated, 

entiation of 

man from f or j am eager to come to the point which 

the animal. 

marks the differentiation of man from the 
animal world, and which is first clearly 
evidenced in the use of the reasoning, intel- 
lectual powers of inhibition. 

Now it is evident that in the earlier stages 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 35 
of man's development, the inhibition of the 

1 . . The growth 

sub-conscious animal powers was frequently of inhibi- 

tory powers 

a source of danger and of death. Reason used con ' 

sciously as 

not yet sufficiently instructed and far-seeing I™™ to 
was an inefficient pilot, and sometimes laid 
the ship aback when she would have kept 
before the wind if left to herself. To 
abandon the metaphor, the control was im- 
perfect, wavered between two alternatives, 
and rejecting the guidance of instinct, 
suffered, it may be, destruction. But the 
necessity for conscious control grew as the 
conditions of life departed ever more and 
more from those of the wild state. This, 
plainly, for many reasons, but chief of all 
by reason of the limitations enforced by 
the social habit which grew out of the need 
for co-operation. 

This point must be briefly elaborated, for 
it outlines the birth of inhibition in its ap- 
plication to everyday life; and in so doing 



36 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

™ e foTT demonstrates the growth of the principle of 
under- conscious control which, after countless thou- 

standingof . 

the powers sands oi years, we are but now beginning 

of inhibi- 
tion, to appreciate and understand. 

It is true that we have evidence of con- 
scious inhibition in a pure state of nature. 
The wild cat stalking its quarry inhibits 
the desire to spring prematurely, and con- 
in animals trols to a deliberate end its eagerness for 

certain in- m 

hibitory -the instant gratification of a natural ap- 

powers 

which are petite. But in this, and in the many other 

evidenced 

a f. e "!" similar instances such instinctive acts of 

stinctive 

m inhibition have been developed through long 
ages of necessity. The domestic kitten of 
a few weeks old, which has never been de- 
pendent on its own efforts for a single meal, 
will exhibit the same instinct. In animals 
the inherited power is there; in man also 
the power is there as a matter of physical 
inheritance, but with what added possi- 
bilities as the accumulated product of ex- 



conscious. 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 37 

perience from the conscious use of this 
wonderful force. 

The first experience must have come to 
man very early in his development. So 
soon as any act was proscribed and punish- 
ment meted out for its performance, or so 
soon as a reward was consciously sought — 
though its attainment necessitated realized, 
personal dager — there must have been a 
deliberate, conscious inhibition of natural 
desires, which further enforced a similar 
restraint of muscular, physical functioning. 
As the needs of society widened, this neces- 
sity for the daily, hourly inhibition of Tbe growth 

of con 

natural desires increased to a bewildering ***** m- 

hibition 

extent on the prohibitive side. There grew in man 
up first 'taboos,' and then the rough for- 
mulation of moral and social law, and on 
the other side an ambition for larger powers 
which encouraged qualities of emulation 
and ambition. 



38 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

Among the infinite diversity of these 
influences, natural appetites, and the modes 
of gratifying them, were ever more and 
more held in subjection, and the sub- 
conscious self or instinct which initiated 
every action in the lower animal world fell 
under the subjection of the conscious, domi- 
nating intellect or will, and in the process we 
must not overlook one fact of supreme 
importance: man still progressed physically 
and mentally. This control acquired by 
quireTby t ne conscious mind broke no great law of 
scious mind nature, known or unknown ; for if this 

breaks no 

great law acquired control had been in conflict with 

of nature. 

any of those great and, to us, as yet, in- 
comprehensible forces which have ruled the 
evolution of species, the animal we call man 
would have become extinct as did those 
early saurian types which failed to fulfil 
the purpose of development and perished 
before man's first appearance on this earth. 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 39 

But any exact definition of the sub- 
conscious self necessitates a clearer compre- in any 

attempt at 

hension of the terms 'will,' 'mind,' and ***»« 
'matter,' which may or may not be different mm," we 

must re- 

aspects of one and the same force. More member 

how few 

than two thousand years of philosophy have iac * s * Tk 
left the metaphysician still vaguely specu- certa,n - 
lating as to the relations of these three 
essentials, and, personally, I am not very 
hopeful of any solution from this source. 
The investigation, though still in its in- 
fancy in this form, has taken the shape of 
an exact science, and it is to that science 
of psychology as now understood, that I 
look to the elucidation of many difficult 
problems in the future. Without touch- 
ing on the uncertain ground of speculative 
philosophy, I will try, however, to be as 
definite as may be with regard to my con- 
ception of the sub-conscious self. 

In the first place, great prominence has 



40 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

been given to the conception of the sub- 
conscious self as an entity within an entity 
by the argument as to its absolute control 
of the bodily functions. In support of this 
argument all the evidence of hypnotism 
and the various forms of auto-suggestion 
and faith-healing has been advanced. Under 
the first heading we have been told that 
under the direction of the hypnotist the 
ordinary functions of the body may be 
controlled or superseded, as for instance, 
that a wound may be formed and bleed 
without mechanically breaking the skin, 
or that a wound may be healed more rapidly 
than is consistent with the ordinary course 
of nature as exemplified in the body of the 

l Cf. Hypnotism, by Albert Moll. Good cases of suppuration, 
blistering, and bleeding, as the result of suggestion without any 
preliminary abrasion of the skin, are those supplied by the records 
of Professor Forel's experiments at the Zurich Lunatic Asylum. 
These experiments were conducted on the person of a nurse who is 
described as the daughter of healthy country people, and not a 
hysterical subject. 



-con- 
scious con- 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 41 

subject. Under the second heading, which ^£ 
includes all forms of self-suggestion, we ^J^ 

from 

have had examples of what is known as hypnotism 

and faith- 

somatization, 1 or the appearance on the healing. 
body of hysterical and obsessed subjects of 
some imitation of the five sacred wounds; 
and the instances of cures which seem 
to our uninstructed minds as miraculous, 
due by inference to the power of faith, are 
so numerous that no special example need 
be cited. 

These and many kindred phenomena 
have been explained on the hypothesis that 
the hidden entity when commanded by 
the will is able to exert an all-powerful ^ re . 

. . , suits in a 

influence either beneficent or malignant; primitive 

conception. 

the obscure means by which the command 
may be enforced being variously described. 
We see, at once, that the conception of a 

l There is much evidence on this point, some of it conflicting, 
but the main fact must be considered above question. 



42 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

hidden entity is the primitive explanation 
which first occurs to the puzzled mind. 

We find the same tendency in the many 

curious superstitions of the savage who 

And is com-endows every bird, beast, stone and tree 

parable to 

man y with powers of evil or of good, and discovers 

savage 

su . p . er " a 'hidden entity,' all of a piece with this 

stitions. ^ 7 x 

conception of the sub-conscious self, in a 
piece of wood that he has cut from a tree, 
or a lump of clay that he had modelled into 
the rude shape of man, bird, or beast. . 

My own conception is rather of the unity 

than the diversity of life. And since any 

a concep- attempt to define the term Life would be 

tion of Life 

a J o a g ^°!^ g presumptuous, the definition being beyond 
seK^on- the scope of man's present ability, I will 
merely say that life in this connection must 
be read in the widest application conceivable. 
And it appears to me that all we know of 
the evolution or development of life goes 
to show that it has progressed, and will 



sciousness 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 43 

continue to progress in the direction of 
self-consciousness. 1 If we grant the unity 
of life and the tendency of its evolution, it 
follows that all the manifestation of what 
we have called the 'sub-conscious self 
are functions of the vital essence or life- 
force, which functions are passing from 
automatic or conscious to reasoning or 
conscious control. (This conception does 
not necessarily imply any distinction between 
the thing controlled and the control itself. 
This may be inferred from the use of the 
word 'self-conscious,' but the further eluci- 
dation of this side of the theory is not ger- 
mane to the present argument.) 

Now I am quite prepared to accept pheno- 
mena of the kind I have instanced, such as 
unusual cures effected by hynotism, and 
by the somewhat allied methods of the 

l Cf. Herbert Spencer, Education, chapter xi., 'Humanity has 
progressed solely by self-instruction.' 



44 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

i^fanows 8 var i olls forms of faith-healing; but I do 
phenomena deny, and most emphatically deny, that 

of hypno- . . _ 

tism, etc., either procedure is m any pray necessary 

may be 

produced to produce the same, or even more unusual, 

consciously 

Hberatei phenomena. 1 In other words, I say that 
man may in time obtain complete conscious 
control of every function of the body with- 
out — as is implied by the word 'conscious' 
— going into any trance induced by hypnotic 
means, and without any paraphernalia of 
making reiterated assertions or statements 
of belief. 

Apart from my practical experience of the 
harm that so often results from hypnotic 
and suggestive treatment, an experience 
sufficient to demonstrate the dangers of 
applying these methods to a large majority 
of cases, I found my objection to these 
practices on a broad and, I believe, in- 

l Moreover, I deny that hypnotism can possibly succeed except 
in comparatively rare instances. It is not universal in its ap- 
plicability. 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 45 

controvertible basis. This is that the ob- 
taining of trance is a prostitution and deg- 
radation of the objective mind; that it 
ignores and debases the chief curative agent, 
the apprehension of the patient's conscious 
mind; and that it is in direct contradiction 
to the governing principle of evolution, the 
great law of self-preservation by which the 
instinct of animals has been trained, as it 
were, to meet and overcome the imminent 
dangers of everyday existence. In man 
this desire for life is an influence in thera- 
peutics, so strong that I can hardly exag- 
gerate its potentiality, and it is, moreover, 
an influence that can be readily awakened 
and developed. The will to live has in Hypnotism 

i? • vji i takes n0 

one experience 01 mine hited a woman account ot 

the domin- 

almost from the grave, a woman who had ant fact01 

in physical 

been operated upon and practically aban- S^Sre 
doned as dead by her surgeons. A passing or the win 

to live. 

thought flashing across a brain that had 



46 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

all but abandoned the struggle for existence, 
a sudden consciousness that her children 
might not be well cared for if she died, was 
sufficient to reawaken the desire for life, 
and to revivify a body which no medical 
skill could have saved. 1 But there is no 
need to quote instances; the fact is recog- 
nized, yet how small is the attempt made 
to make use of and control so potent a force ! 
The same argument may be applied, also, 
to the prostration of the mind as a factor 
in the popular rest cures which really seek 
to put the mind, the great regenerating 
force, out of action. 

Returning to my definition of the sub- 
conscious self, it will be seen that I regard it 

1 Two years later this woman came to me in a state of collapse, 
the result of the after effects of a bad attack of pleurisy. She 
proved an admirable patient, and is now in perfect health. She 
was a magnificent instance of a case in which the power was there, 
finely developed, but not the knowledge which would enable her to 
make full use of that power. 



th«> 
vital 
essence. 



SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 47 

as a manifestation of the partly conscious 
vital essence, functioning at times very 
vividly, but on the whole incompletely, and 
from this postulate it follows that our en- 
deavours should be directed to perfecting 
the self-consciousness of this vital essence. 
The perfect attainment of this object in The sub- 

conscious 

every individual would imply a mental and self is 

merely one 

physical ability, and a complete immunity ^ anifesta t 
from disease that is still a dream of the 
future. But once the road is pointed, we 
must forsake the many bypaths however 
fascinating, bypaths which lead at last 
to an impasse, and necessitate a return in 
our own footsteps. Instead of this we 
must devote our energies along the indicated 
road, a road that presents, it is true, many 
difficulties, and is not straight and easy to 
traverse, but a road that nevertheless leads 
to an ideal of mental and physical complete- 
ness almost beyond our imaginings. 



48 SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS AND INHIBITION 

We look towards the goal, and it is best 

to seek the highest and be content with no 

less, but at the same time it is necessary 

Isdessun- that we should consider the practical detail 

to practice of our journey. What follows may seem 

and can be 

usefully trivial by comparison with the high en- 

applied. 

deavour I have outlined, but it is the 
triviality of the essential detail. 

I wish to point the road still more clearly, 
and to show how every man and woman may 
learn to walk upon it. 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 49 



IV 
CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

•The philosophy of the eternal values cannot be anything else but 
the systematic deduction of all possible absolutely valid values from 
one principle, and for us this one principle is now founded on the 
deepest rock of our inner world — on the will to have a world 
which is self-asserting.' — Hugo Munsterberg, The Eternal Values 
'.Man one harmonious soul of many a soul 
Whose nature is its own divine control.' — Shelley 



O 



NE of the most recent phases of popu- 
lar, as opposed to scientific, thought 



has been that which has endeavoured to The , New 
teach the control of the mind. Generally movement 

has failed 

this teaching has been spoken of as the to a PP re- 

° hend the 

'New Thought' movement, though certain ^jf 
of its precepts may be found in Marcus "^^ ™ 

, dogma and 

Aurelius. This movement has had, and is ritua i. 
still having, a considerable vogue in 



50 CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

America, and the influence of it has been 
felt in England, many of the writings of 
its exponents having been published here 
within the last fifteen or twenty years. 
The object of the teaching is to promote 
the habit of 'right thinking,' which is to be 
obtained by the control of the mind. The 
'New Thought' teaches that certain ideas, 
such as fear, worry, anger, are to be rigidly 
excluded from the mind and the attention 
fixed upon their opposites, such as courage, 
complacency, calm. With certain of the 
tendencies expressed in this movement I 
am in sympathy, but following the usual 
progression of such movements, the 'New 
Thought' is losing sight of the principle 
— which was, indeed, never fully grasped — 
and is becoming involved in a species of 
dogma, the rigidity of which is, in my 
opinion, directly opposed to the primary 
object-. One of its earlier and most capable 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 51 

exponents, 1 however, marked the principle 
with a phrase, and by naming one of his 
works In Tune ivith the Infinite, gave 
permanence to the central idea, though 
more recent writers in embroidering the 
theme have lost sight of the original thesis. 
Moreover, I have not found in the 'New 
Thought' a proper consideration of cause 
and effect in treating the mental and 
physical in combination. There is, and has 
always been, exhibited the fallacy of con- 
sidering the mental and physical as in some 
sense antitheses, which are opposed to each 
other and make war, whereas the two must 
be considered, at least, as entirely inter- 
dependent, and, in my opinion, even more 
closely knit than is implied by such a 
phrase. 

I have touched briefly on the movement 
here because it emphasizes the fact that we 

l Ralph Waldo Trine. 



52 CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

are dimly grasping at a truth and paralyzing 
Hut there our attempts to hold it by the premature 

i3 a truth 

underlying assumption that we have it safe at last. 

<ill such 

con- At the same time I believe that underlying 

ceptions. 

the teachings of these recent movements, 
'New Thought' and, generally, 'Faith- 
healing' (and in these two closely allied 
influences I include all the offshoots and 
subdivisions), there is some apprehension 
of an essential, an" apprehension which is 
liable to lose its grip by reason of the dogma 
and ritual that has grown up and tends to 
obscure the one fundamental. 

All these sects, parties, societies, creeds — 
call them what you will- — have a common 
inspiration ; we need no further proof than 
we have already received that no one of 
the many developments from the common 

We must 

seek the S0U rce is in itself complete and perfect ; 

noumenon 

re'aihy. there is good evidence that each new de- 
velopment as soon as it becomes specialized 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 53 

is separated from the true source, becomes 
over-elaborated, and so works its own down- 
fall, the principle becoming absorbed and 
dominated by the bias of some individual 
mind — such is my analysis of the phe- 
nomena. It follows that what we seek is 
the noumenon, the reality, the true idea that 
underlies all these various manifestations. 

Before I attempt to trace the common ^^ 
principle, however, I wish to make three pos 
statements. 

(1) I do not profess to offer a finally 

perfected theory, for by so doing I We are 

only at the 

should lay myself open to the same beginnings 

of under- 

arguments I have advanced against standing. 
other theories of the same nature. 
I say, frankly, that we are only at 
the beginnings of understanding, and 
my own wish is to keep my theory 
as simple as possible, to avoid any 
dogma. . . . 



54 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 



This 
brochure 
will only 
treat of 
physical 
applica- 
tions. 



And is not 

finally 

definitive. 



(2) I do not propose in this place, for 
many reasons, to consider my own 
methods in any other connection but 
that of their application to physical 
defects, to the eradication of diseases, 
distortions, and lack of control, and, 
progressively, to the science of race- 
culture and the improvement of the 
physique of the generations to come. 

(3) I wish it to be clearly understood 
that this brochure is not finally 
definitive. I hope in the future to 
have many opportunities of examin- 
ing the complexes, and of stating 
my experience of particular appli- 
cations of my methods to peculiar 
cases, but I should not be true to 
my own principles if I were not 
willing to accept amendments, 
even, perhaps, to alter one or other 
of my premises should new facts 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 55 

tend to show that I have made a 
false assumption in any particular. 
Now I have thus cleared the ground, 1 
will examine what I believe to be the first The first 

stumbling 

and greatest stumbling-block to conscious b iock is 

rigidity oi 

self-control, namely, 'rigidity of mind,' mind. 

which results in the fixed habit of thought 

and its concomitants — the functional and 

muscular habits passed on to sub-conscious 

control. 

In defining rigidity of mind, I must hark 

back for a moment to that suggestive 

phrase of Mr. Trine 's In Tune with the 

Infinite, though, in the present application, 

the rigidity I am concerned with is con- The intelli- 
gent har 

sidered in a physical connection and does mon y of 

L * the 

not involve interference with any non-spatial J^ 031 
conceptions. It is rather the first half of 
the phase that is here of importance, for 
to be 'In Tune' conveys to my mind, and 
I wish it to convey the same meaning to 



56 CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

others, the ideas of sensitiveness to impres- 
sions and responsiveness to the touch, when 
'all the functions of life are becoming an 
intelligent harmony.' In a word, I want to 
tt e P I> e p a en f0r suggest the idea of being open-minded, for 
even in reading this, if the individual de- 
liberately puts himself in opposition to my 
point of view, he can by no possibility hope 
to benefit. Wherefore I desire, above all 
things, that he or she will read at least with 
an open mind and form no conclusion until 
I have finished, and will, perhaps, more 
particularly, subdue the interference of that 
great and ruling predisposition which has 
in the past so long impeded the advance of 
science. 

Let us consider for a moment the appli- 
cation of rigidity of mind to physical 
functions. A person comes to me with 
some crippling defect due to the improper 
use of some organ or set of muscles. When 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 57 

I have diagnosed the defect and shown the "gfjr * 
patient how to nse the organ or muscles ^"S 

. functions. 

in the proper way, I am always met at 
once with the reply", 'But I can't.' Let me 
ask any one who is reading this, and who 
suffers in any way, whether his or her attitude 
to the defect they suffer from is not pre- 
cisely the same? Now this reply indicates 
directly that the control of the part affected 
is entirely sub-conscious; if it were not, we 
should merely have to substitute the hope- 
ful 'I can ' for that despondent ' I can't,' 
to remove the trouble. By (a) hypnotic 
treatment, by {b) faith-healing, or by (c) the 
application of the principles of the 'New 
Thought,' the patient in such a case would 
have the sub-conscious control influenced, 
either (a) by the mechanical means of 
trance and suggestion by the hypnotist, 
which leaves the conscious mind in exactly 
the original condition and merely changes 



58 . CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

(and it may be only temporarily) the habit 
of the snb-conscious control, or (b and c) by 
reiterated commands of the objective mind, 
perhaps heightened by the influencing sug- 
gestion of the healer or healers which, by 
repetition, substitute one habit for another 
without any apprehension by the intelli- 
gence or the true method of the exchange, 
or, what is quite as frequent and far more 
The con- harmful, shut out the sensitiveness to pain 

scious mind 

must be from the cerebral centres, and so leave the 

quickened ; 

not put out radical evil, no longer labelled by nature's 

of action. 

warning, to work the patient's destruction 
in secret. Briefly, all three methods seek 
to reach the subjective mind by deadening 
the objective or conscious mind, and the 
centre and backbone of my theory and 
practice, which I feel that I cannot insist 
upon too strongly, is that the conscious 

MIND MUST BE QUICKENED. 

It will be seen from this statement that 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 59 

my theory is in some ways a revolutionary ™ s e *£ 

1 . a revolu- 

one since all earlier methods have in some tionary 
form or another sought to put the flexible 
working of the true conciousness out of 
action in order to reach the sub-consciousness. 
The result of those methods it, logically and 
inevitably, to endeavour to alter a bad 
subjective habit and leave the objective 
habit of thought unchanged. The teachings 
of the 'New Thought' and many sects 
of faith-healers set out clearly enough that 
the patient must think rightly before he 
can be cured, but automatically, as it were, 
they then set about the carrying out of their 
teaching by prescribing 'affirmatives' or 
some sort of 'auto-suggestion' which are, 
in effect, no more than a kind of self-hyp- 
notism, and, as such, are debasing to the 
primary functions of the intelligence. 

I will take a simple instance from my 
own experience to illustrate a case in point. 



60 CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

la^pi^of 1 A patient, whom I will call X, came to 
ofVecon- me with an obstinate stammer arising from 

ceptions on 

the working a congenital defect in the co-ordination of the 

of the body. 

The case face, tongue and throat muscles. When- 

of X. 

ever X attempted to speak he drew down 
his upper lip. This was the outward sign 
of a series of vicious acts connected with a 
train of muscular movements; a sign that 
the ideo-motor centres were working to 
convey a wrong guiding influence to the 
specific parts concerned in the act of speech. 
These guiding influences rendered X quite 
incapable of speech, and would, indeed, 
have so prevented any other individual 
who produced the same working of the parts 
concerned. To insist in such a case that X 
should repeat 'I can speak,' or 'I won't 
stutter,' would be merely to endeavour to 
reach a supposed omniscient self-conscious 
self which would counteract the evil by the 
exercise of some assumed and separate 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 61 

intelligence possessed by it. I undertook 

the case by appealing to X's intelligence. 

Now, strange as it may seem (and I intend 

to treat this curious perversion in my next 

chapter), X's objective intelligence is not so 

easily reached and influenced a 5 might 

appear. 
He has formed a muscular habit of draw- xj^ ^ 

ing down his lip independent of his conscious ™ lar 
control, and the line of suggestion set up 
by the wish to speak induces at once a reflex 
action of a complicated set of muscles. 
X has learned to do this automatically, 
and at first seems incapable of controlling 
those lip muscles when the wish to speak is 
initiated. 

In this case my first endeavour must be 
directed to keeping in abeyance, by the 
power of inhibition, all the mental associa- 
tions connected with the idea of speaking; 
and to eradicating all erroneous, pre-con- 



62 CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

My method ceived ideas concerning the things X 

of breaking 

down the imagines he can or cannot do, or what is 

old, vicious 

Tdmentai or {t not possible. My next effort must be 
to give X correct and conscious control of 
all the parts concerned, including, of course, 
the lip and face muscles, preparatory to 
the very conception of speaking during 
the practice of the exercises, and to get this 
control he must have a complete and perfect 
apprehension of all the muscles concerned. 
In originating some new idea which is to 
take the place of the old idea of drawing 
down the upper lip, it may be necessary 
at first to break the old association by some 
new order, such as deliberately to draw 
the lip up, to open the mouth, or to make 
some similar muscular act previously un- 
familiar in its application to the act of 
speech. The new order is then substituted 
for the command to speak. X is told 
not to speak but to draw up his lip, open 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 63 

his mouth, etc It will be understood that 
I have omitted much detail touching the 
interdependence of the parts concerned, but 
I wish here to convey only the essentials 
of method rather than the physiological 
explanation of their working. It must al- 
ways be remembered that Nature works 
as a whole and not in parts, and once the 
true cause of the evil is discovered and 
eradicated, all the affected mechanisms can 
soon be restored to their full capacity. I 
may note here that X was completely cured 
of his stammer, and that his was a partic- 
ularly obstinate case, a fact chiefly due 
to the confirmation of a wrong habit in early 
childhood. 

This is an example, chosen for its sim- This very 
plicity, to illustrate the prime essentials cSie of 

wide ap- 

of my theory, but it is capable of a very plication 
wide application, so wide that it may be 
applied to the working not only of the 



64 CONSCIOUS CONTROL 

ordinary controlled muscles, but of the 
semi-automatic muscles which actuate the 
vital organs. Not many years ago an Indian 
Yogi was examined by Professor Max Miiller 
at Cambridge, and we have it on the au- 
thority of the latter that this Yogi was 
able to stop the beating of his own heart 
at will and suffer no harmful consequences. 
Let it be clearly understood, however, 
that I have no sympathy with these abnormal 
manifestations, which I regard as a danger- 
But we ous trickery practised on the body, a trickery 

must not 

attempt in no way admirable or to be sought after. 

trickery. 

The performances of the Yogis do not 
certainly command my admiration, and the 
well-known system of breathing practised 
and taught by them is, in my opinion, not 
only wrong and essentially crude, but tends 
also to exaggerate those very defects from 
which we suffer in this twentieth century. 
I have merely quoted this case of the Yogi 



CONSCIOUS CONTROL 65 

in support of my assertion that there is 
no function of the body that cannot be 
brought under the control of the conscious 

will. 

That this is, indeed, a fact and not a 
theory, I do claim without hesitation, and 
I claim further that by the application of 
this principle of conscious control there From the 

~ ^ principle 

may, in time, be evolved a complete mastery 
over the body, which will result in the ™,* e 

complete 

elimination of all physical defects. Certain mastery of 

the body. 

aspects of this control and the reasons why 
it has not been acquired, I wil treat under 
the next heading. 



of con- 
scious con- 
trol we may 



66 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY. 

'The man who has so far made up his mind about anything 
that he can no longer reckon freely with that thing, is mad 
where that thing is concerned.' — Allen Upward, The New 
Word 

T Y 7" HEN speaking of the case of stammer- 
* * ing cited in my last chapter, I had 
occasion to note that it was not an easy 
task to influence X's conscious mind. The 
point is this; a patient who submits him- 
self for treatment, whether to a niedical 
we must man or to any other practitioner, may do 

apprehend 

the method what he is told, but will not or cannot 

and not 

mechanic- TH ink as he is told. In ordinary practice, 

ally follow J ^ ' 

the man who has taken a medical degree 
disregards this mental attitude in ninety- 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 67 

nine cases out of a hundred. Medicine, 
diet, or exercise is prescribed, and if the 
patient obediently follows the mechanical 
directions given with regard to the pre- 
scriptions, he is considered a good patient. 
The doctor does not trouble as to the patient's 
attitude of mind, except in that one case out 
of a hundred, possibly a case of flagrant 
hypochondria. 

Indeed I am willing to maintain and prove 
in this connection that a very large per- 
centage of cases which are now being 
treated in our public and private lunatic 
asylums, have been allowed to develop 
insanity by reason of this disregard of the 
mental attitude. I cannot stop now to 
consider this interesting subject of insanity, 
but I must note in passing that that very 
large percentage of the cases I have men- 
tioned, should never have been allowed to 
arrive at the condition which made it neces- 



68 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

sary to send them to an asylum in the first 

instance. Very many of them, so far from 

a paren- lacking mental control, are minds of quite 

thesis on ° ^ 

insanity, exceptional ability, among them being in- 
stances of subjects who have assumed a 
deliberate attitude in the first place to sub- 
serve a private end, such as the avoidance 
of uncongenial work, or the over-indulgence 
of some desire or perverted sense, though 
the attitude which was first adopted de- 
liberately, became afterwards a fixed habit, 
and so uncontrollable. 
When we are seeking to give a patient 

The con- conscious control, the consideration of mental 

sideration < I . 

of mental attitude, therefore, must precede the per- 

attitude is ,. 

of the first formance of the act prescribed. The act 
import- 
Mice, performed is of less consequence than the 

manner of its performance. And yet, 

though the patient or inquirer into the 

system may apprehend this fact, he often 

finds an enormous difficulty in altering some 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 69 

trifling habit of thought which stands 
between him and the benefit he clearly 
expects. 

The truth of the matter is that the ma- 
ioritv of people fall into a mechanical habit Habits of 

J * thought 

of thought as easily as they fall into the p««de 

° ^ habits of 

mechanical habit of body which is the im- body - 
mediate consequence. 

I will take an instance from a subject 
outside my own province in order to bring 
the matter home; but I will preface my 
illustration by pointing out that I, person- 
ally, am not in the least concerned to alter An 

example 

the habit of thought of either of the persons drawn 

" from every 

I adduce as an example, and only cite well- day hfe 
known political propaganda in order to give 
vividness to my picture. 

Let us suppose then that A is a convinced 
Free-trader, and that Z is no less certain 
of the glorious possibilities of Protection, 
and let us set A and Z to argue the matter. 



70 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

We notice at once that when A is speaking 
Z's endeavours are confined to catching 
him in a misstatement or in a fault of logic, 
and A's attitude is precisely the same when 
™ s le e3 V s Z holds the stage. Neither partisan has 
'" f ^f Jrm the least intention from the outset of alter- 

of mental . . 

failure or mg ms creed, nor could either be convinced 

incom- 
pleteness by the facts and arguments of the other, 

which has 

a physical however sound. This is a fact within the 

applica- 

experience of every intelligent person. The 
disputants have so influenced their own 
minds that they are incapable of receiving 
certain impressions; a part of their in- 
telligence normally susceptible of receiving 
new ideas, even if such ideas are opposed to 
earlier conceptions, is in a state of anaes- 
thesia ; it is shut off, put out of action. The 
habit of mind which has been formed 
mechanically translates all the arguments 
of an opponent into misconceptions or 
fallacies. Neither disputant in our illus- 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 71 

tration has the least intention or desire to 
approach the subject with an open mind. 
Unfortunately, the rigid habit of mind does 
not only apply to the issues of government; 
it is evidenced in all the thoughts and acts 
of our daily life, and is the cause of many 
demonstrable evils. 

Returning now to my own province of 
therapeutics, I need hardly instance any 
special example to carry my point. Of late 
years much attention has been given to 
the consideration of the mental attitude 
with regard to disease, and though no clearly 
denned remedy has been advanced, the 
condition has been diagnosed and defined. 
The 'fixed idea,' hallucination, obsession, 
are all terms used deliberately to denote a 
morbid condition, but we have to apply these 
terms much more widely and grasp the fact 
that they are applicable to small, disre- 
garded mental habits as well as to the well- 



72 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 
i^egate defined evils which marked their develop- 

of mental x j i 

and phys- ment. In the case of X, the mental habit 

teal habits 

seems to which had grown up as the result of postu- 

constitute 

a complete i a ting 'I can't draw my lip up before speak- 
ing,' was only another aspect of the attitude 
of A and Z towards the subject of their 
discussion, and it was precisely similar in 
kind. The aggregate of these habits is so 
characteristic in some cases that we see 
how easily the fallacy arose of assuming an 
entity for the sub-conscious self, a self 
which at the last analysis is made up of those 
acquired habits and of certain other habits 
(some of them labelled instincts) the pre- 
disposition to which is our birthright, a 
predisposition inherited from that long chain 
of ancestors whose origin goes back to the 
first dim emergence of active life. For- 
tunately for us there is not a single one of 
these habits of mind, with their resultant 
habits of body, which may not be altered 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 7$ 

by the inculcation of those principles con- 
cerning the true poise of the body which 
I have called the principles of mechanical The iu- 

effects of 

advantage, 1 used in co-operation with an the seif- 

imposed 

understanding of the inhibitory and voli- ha . bi ! 3 °* 



tional powers of the objective mind; by 
which means these deterrent habits can 
be raised to conscious control. The false 
pose and carriage of the body; the in- 
correct and laboured habits of breathing 
that are the cause of many troubles besides 
the obvious ill-effects on the lungs and 
heart; the degeneration of the muscular 
system; the partial failure of many vital 
organs ; the morbid, fatty conditions that 
destroy the semblance of men and women 
to human beings; — all these things and 
many more that combine to cause disability, 
disease, and death, are the result of in- 

i Certain aspects of these principles will be found set out in 
the two pamphlets which I have incorporated in this volume. 



mind and 
body. 



An 

apparent 

objection. 



74 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

correct habits of mind and body, all of 
which may be changed into correct and 
beneficial habits if once we can clear away 
that first impeding habit of thought which 
stands between us and conscious control. 

I believe I have at last laid myself quite 
open to the attack of the habitual objector, 
a person I am really anxious to conciliate. 
I have given him the opportunity of point- 
ing a finger at my last paragraph and saying, 
'But you oly want to change one habit 
for another. If, as you have implied, the 
habit of mind is bad, why encourage habits 
at all, even if they are as you say, "correct 
and beneficial"?' 

This is a point of the first importance. 
But in the first place it is essential to 
understand the difference between the habit 
that is recognized and understood, and the 
habit that is not. The difference in its 
application to the present case is that the 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 75 

first can be altered at will and the second 
cannot. For once real conscious control ™ e e ** er " 

, n -, tween con- 

is obtained, a 'habit' need never be nxed ; scious and 

uncon- 

it is not truly a habit at all, but an order or scious 

modes of 

series of orders given to the subordinate^^ 
controls of the body, which orders will be 
carried out until countermanded. 

Let us consider for a moment the import 
of this statement. Suppose a patient comes 
to me who has acquired incorrect respiratory 
habits, and suppose that he is plastic and 
ready to assimiliate new methods, and that 
he soon learns consciously to make a proper 
use of the muscular mechanism which 
governs the movements of the breathing 
apparatus, a word that fitly describes this 
particular mechanism of the body. Now 
it would be absurd to suppose that there- 
after this person should in his waking ^ 

- , example 

moments deliberately apprehend each sepa- of t his 

difference. 

rate working of his lungs. He has acquired 



76 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

conscious control of that working, it is true, 
but once that control has been mastered, 
the actual movements that follow are given 
in charge of the 'sub-conscious self,' but 
always on the understanding that a counter 
order may be given at any moment if 
necessary. Until such counter order is 
given, however, if it ever need be given, 
the working of the lungs is for all intents 
and purposes sub-conscious, though it may 
be elevated to the level of the conscious 
at any moment. Thus it will be seen that 
the difference between the new habit and 
the old is that the old was our master and 
ruled us, while the new is our servant ready 
to carry out our lightest wish without 
question, though always working quietly 
and unobtrusively on our behalf in accord- 
ance with the most recent orders given. 

Briefly, as I see it, the sub-consciousness 
in this application is only a synonym for 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 77 

that rigid routine we finally refer to as 
habit; this rigid routine being the stum- ^V£' 
bling-block to rapid adaptability, to the " r e u s * c a n n d 

, . . sciousness 

assimilation of new ideas, to originality, stand for 
On the other hand, the consciousness is the 
synonym for mobilty of mind, for all that 
the sub-conscious control checks and im- 
pedes, a mobility which will obtain for us 
physical regeneration and a mental outlook 
that will open new and wider possibilities 
in the enjoyment of those powers we all 
possess, but which are so often deliberately 
stunted or neglected. 

Consider this point also in its application This point 

in its ap- 

to the case of John Doe, cited in my second plication 

to the case 

chapter. If the mental attitude of that J™^ 
hypothetical individual had been changed, 
and he had learned to use his muscles 
consciously; if, instead of automatically 
performing a set of muscle-tensing exercises, 
he had devoted himself to apprehending 



78 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

the control of his muscles and the co-ordina- 
tion of them, he could have carried his 
knowledge into every act of his life. In 
his most sedentary occupations he could 
have been using and exercising his muscular 
system without resort to any violent con- 
tortions, waving of the arms or kicking of 
the legs ; and I cannot but think that in 
the first place he could better have employed 
those hours spent in this manner by taking 
a walk in the open air or by occupying 
himself with some other form of natural 
exercise. Still, if in his case certain mild 
forms of exercise at certain times were 
necessary, such exercises should have used 
and employed his mental and physical 
powers, and through those agencies should 
have used his muscular mechanism in such 
a way that its uses could have been applied 
to the simplest acts, such as sitting on a 
stool and writing at a desk. There would 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 79' 

then have been no question of what we 
termed civil war within the body; the 
whole physical machinery would have been 
co-ordinated and adapted to John Doe's 
way of life. 

In an earlier paragraph I pointed out 
that John Doe was suffering from certain 
mental and physical delusions, and I en- 
deavoured to show how those delusions 
militated against his recovery of health. 
Returning to this point now that the correct 
method has been indicated, I may use his 
case to give another example of this method. 
What John Doe lacked was a conscious and 
proper recognition of the right uses of the 
parts of his muscular mechanism, since 
while he still uses such parts wrongly, the 
performance of physical exercises will only 
increase the defects. He will, in fact, merely 
copy some other person in the performance 
of a particular exercise; copy him in the 



80 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

outward act, while his own consciousness of 
the act performed and the means and uses 
of his muscular mechanism will remain un- 
altered. Therefore, before he attempts any 
form of physical development, he must dis- 
cover, or find some one who can discover 
for him, what are his defects in the uses 
indicated. When this has been done he 
must proceed to inhibit the guiding sensa- 
tions which cause him to use the mech- 
anism imperfectly, apprehend the position of 
mechanical advantage, and then by using 
the new, correct guiding sensations or orders, 
he will be able to bring about the proper 
use of his muscular mechanism with perfect 
ease. If the mechanical principle employed 
is a correct one, every movement will be 
made with a minimum of effort, and he will 
not be conscious of the slightest tension. 
In time will follow a recognition of the new 
and correct use of the mechanism, which 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 81 

use will then become established and be 
employed in the acts of everyday life. 

For instance, if we decide that a defect 
must be got rid of or a mode of action 
changed, and if we proceed in the ordinary 
way directly to eradicate it, we shall fail 
invariably, and with reason. Should a man 
habitually stiffen his neck in walking, sitting, 
or other ordinary acts of life, it evidences 
that he is endeavouring to do with the 
muscles of his neck the work which should 
be performed by certain other muscles of 
his body, notably those of the back. Now 
it follows that if he is told to relax those 
stiffened muscles of the neck and obeys the 
order, this mere act of relaxation deals 
only with an effect, and does not quicken 
his consciousness of the use of the right 
mechanism which he should use in place 
of those relaxed. The desire to stiffen the 
" neck muscles should be inhibited as a pre- 



82 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

liminary (which is not the same thing at all 
as a direct order to relax the muscles them- 
selves), and then the true uses of the muscular 
mechanism, the means of placing the body 
in a position of mechanical advantage, must 
be studied, when the work will naturally 
devolve on those muscles intended to 
carry it out, and the neck will be relaxed 
unconsciously. The conscious orders in 
this case, the orders given to the right 
muscles, are preventative orders, and the 
due sequence of cause and effect is main- 
tained. 

But the full discussion of the principles 
of physical culture must be left to a later 
work, 1 and I will, here, only note one more 
point in concluding my reference to the 
hypothecated John Doe, who, nevertheless, 
stands as the representative of a very large 

1 See also the two pamphlets incorporated in this volume, 
viz. 'A New Method of Respiratory Vocal Re-education' and 
'Re-education of the Kinesthetic Systems.' 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 83 

body of people. This point is the question 
of the storing and reserving of energy, and 
what I may call, to use a phrase which has 
a mechanical equivalent, the registration 
of tension. If you ask a man to lift a papier- 
mache imitation of an enormous dumb-bell, 
leading him to believe that it is almost 
beyond his capacity to raise it from the 
floor, he will exert his full power in the 
effort to do that which he could perform 
with the greatest ease. In a lesser degree 
the same expenditure of unnecessary force 
is exerted by the vast majority of 'physical- 
culture' students, and by practically every 
person in the ordinary duties of daily life. 
The mind has not been taught to register 
correctly the tension, or, in other words, to 
gauge accurately the amount of muscular 
effort required to perform certain acts, the 
expenditure of effort always being in excess 
of what is required, an excellent instance of 



Useless 
expendi- 
ture of 
energy. 



84 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

the lack of harmony in the untutored 
organism. This fact may be easily tested 
by any interested person who will take the 
trouble to try its application. Ask a friend 
to lift a chair or any other weight such that 
while it may be lifted without great diffi- 
culty, it will in the process make an un- 
doubted call on the muscular energies. You 
will see at once that your friend will approach 
the task with a definite preconception as to 
the amount of physical tension necessary. 
Before ever he has approached it, he will 
brace or tense the muscles of his arms, 
back, neck, etc., and when about to perform 
the act he will place himself in a position 
which is one of mechanical disadvantage so 
far as he is concerned. All these prepara- 
tions are, of course, quite unnecessary, but 
the whole attitude of mind towards the task 
is wrong; in this instance, indeed, any pre- 
conception as to the degree of tension re- 
quired is out of place. If we desire to lift 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 85 

a weight with the least possible waste of 
energy, we should approach it and grasp 
it with relaxed muscles, assuming the 
position of greatest possible mechanical ad- 
vantage, and then grauually exert our 
muscular energies until sufficient power is 
attained to overcome the resistance. 

Returning now to the consideration of 
that bias or predisposing habit of mind 
which so often balks us at the outset, we 
may see at once that fcius predisposition 
takes many curious forms. Sometimes it 
is frankly objective, and is outlined in the 
statement, 'Well, I don't believe in all this, 
but I may as well try it.' In this form a 
single unlooked-for result is generally enough 
to change disbelief into credulitv. I write f redis P° s - 

r ing habits 

the word 'credulity' with intention, for I^L 
mean to imply that the reaction in a certain 
type of mind is little, if any, better than the 
profession of disbelief. What is required 
is not prejudice in either direction, but a 



86 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

calm, clear, open-eyed intelligence, a ready, 
adaptive outlook; an outlook, believe me, 
which does not connote indefiniteness of 
purpose or uncertainty of initiative. 

Another form of predisposition arises from 
lack of purpose, and the mental habits that 
go with this condition are hard to eradicate, 
more particularly when the original feeble- 
ness has led to some form of hypochondria or 
nervous disease which has been treated with 
the usual disregard of the radical evil. It 
Lack of is not difficult for the most superficial in- 

purpose is 

a predis- quirer to understand that any method of 

posing 

Soften™ 1 treating such cases as these, which relieves 
bysuch ge the subject still further of the exercise of 

methods as 

the 'rest initiative — such a method is the rest cure, 

cure/ 

for instance, though I could quote many 
others — only increases the original evil. 
The lack of purpose is pandered to and 
cultivated, and after the six weeks or so of 
treatment the patient returns to his or her 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 87 

duties in ordinary life, even more unfitted 
than before to perform them. As I have 
said before, no account is taken of the in- 
stinct for self-preservation or the will to 
live. This is the very mainspring of human 
life, yet a power which in the routine of 
protected civilization tends at times to 
become relaxed, and so the machinery 
runs down. Then the machinery must be 
wound up again, not allowed to become still 
further relaxed by resting. And this lack 
of purpose — the immediate effect of our 
educational methods — is, unhappily, very 
common in all classes, but especially among 
those who have no occupation and those 
whose employment is a mechanical routine 
which does not exercise the powers of 
initiative. The curious thing about this 
very large class is that they do not really 
want to be cured. They may be suffering 
from many physical disabilities or from 



88 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

actual physical pain, and they may and 
will protest most earnestly that they want 
to be free from those pains and disabilities, 
but in the face of the evidence we must admit 
that if the objective wish is really there, 
it is so feeble as to be non-existent for 
Habits of all practical purposes. In many cases this 

self-in- 
dulgence, attitude of submission to illness is the out- 
come of a strong subjective habit. The 
trouble, whatever it is, is endured in the first 
instance; it is looked upon as a nuisance, 
perhaps, but not as an intolerable nuisance; 
no steps are taken to be rid of it, and the 
trouble grows and, by degrees, is looked 
upon as a necessity. Then, at last, when 
the trouble has increased until it threatens 
the interruption of all ordinary occupations, 
the sufferer seeks a remedy, but the habit 
of submission has grown too strong, and 
while the disease can be kept within certain 
bounds, no effort is- made to fight it. This 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 89 

is, of course, one of the commonest ex- 
periences in the healing profession. A 
patient is treated and benefited, and seems 
on the high-road to perfect health. Then 
follows a relapse. The first question put is, 
'Have you been following the treatment?' 
and the answer, if the patient is truthful, is, 
'I forgot,' or 'I didn't bother any more 
about it.' In a recent experience of a 
medical friend of mine, a patient confessed 
to having stayed in the house for a week 
after a certain relapse occurred, although 
the very essence of the prescription by 
which he had previously benefited was to 
be in the fresh air as much as possible. This 
simply means that the subjective habit of 
submission has grown too strong for the 
objective mind — weakened in its turn by 
the neglect of its guiding functions — to 
conquer. No prescription or course of treat- 
ment can have any effect upon such a patient 



poor. 



90 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

as this, unless that subjective habit can be 
brought within the sphere of conscious 
control. In other cases this apparent lack 
of desire for health is due to an attachment 
to some dearly loved habit, which must be 
given up if the proper functions of the body 
Thekinaes- are to be resumed. It may be a habit of 

thesis of 

d^duai is sma H self-indulgence or one that is im- 
minently threatening the collapse of the 
vital processes, but the attachment to it is 
so strong, that the enfeebled objective mind 
prefers to hold to the habit and risk death 
sooner than make the effort of opposing it. 
Yet even in cases where no harm can be 
traced directly to a markedly influencing 
habit, the general, all-pervading habit of 
lassitude or inertia is so strong that any 
regime which may be prescribed is dis- 
tasteful if it involves, as it must, the exercise 
of those powers which have been allowed 
to fall more or less into disuse. 



own 
mental 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 91 

Space will not permit of my instancing Every one 
further examples of the predisposing habit, th e!"°ov 

T • 1 C menta 

but very little introspection on the part of habits 
my readers should enable them to diagnose 
their own peculiar mental habits, the first 
step towards being rid of them. We must 
always remember that the vast majority of 
human beings live very narrow lives, doing 
the same thing, and thinking the same 
thoughts day by day; and it is this very 
fact that makes it so necessary that we should 
acquire conscious control of the mental and 
physical powers as a whole, for we otherwise 
run the risk of losing that versatility which 
is such an essential factor in their develop- 
ment. 

If, after reading so far, they feel inclined 
to analyze these habits and to set about a 
control of them, I will give them one word 
of preliminary advice, 'Beware of so-called 
concentration!' 



92 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

This advice is so pertinent to the whole 
principle that it is worth while to elaborate 
SnSSL it. Ask any one you know to concentrate 
futility. his mind on a subject — anything will do, 
a place, a person, or a thing. If your 
friend is willing to play the game and 
earnestly endeavours to concentrate his 
mind, he will probably knit his forehead, 
tense his muscles, clench his hands, and 
either close his eyes or stare fixedly at 
some point in the room. As a result his 
mind is very fully occupied with this un- 
usual condition of the body, which can only 
be maintained by repeated orders from the 
objective mind. In short, your friend, 
though he may not know it, is not using 
his mind for the consideration of the subject 
you have given him to concentrate upon, but 
for the consideration of an unusual bodily 
condition which he calls concentration. This 
is true, also, of the attitude of attention 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 93 

required for children in schools ; it dissociates 
the brain instead of compacting it. Per- 
sonally, I do not believe in any concentration 
which calls for effort. It is the wish, the 
conscious desire to do a thing or think a 
thing, which results in adequate perform- 
ance. Could Spencer have written his First 
Principles, or Darwin his Descent of Man, 
if either had been forced to any rigid narrow- 
ing effort in order to keep his mind on the 

subject in hand? I do not deny that some Tfa e sub- 
stitute is 

work can be done under conditions which **"? con 

. scious 

necessitate such an artificially arduous effort, y^oT 
but I do deny that it is ever the best work. ance. 
Now I will admit that such a case as that 
of Sir Walter Scott can logically be argued 
against this view. For the real earnest wish 
to write the Waverley novels was there, even 
if it originated in the desire to pay the debts 
he took upon himself, and not in the desire 
to write the novels because he took a pleasure 



94 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

in the actual performance. Briefly, our ap- 
plication of the word 'concentration' de- 
notes conflict which is a morbid condition 
and a form of illness; singleness of purpose 
is quite another thing. If you try to 
straighten your arm and bend it at the same 
moment, you may exercise considerable mus- 
cular effort, but you will achieve no result, 
and the analogy applies to the endeavour 
to delimit the powers of the brain by con- 
centration, and at the same time to exercise 
them to the full extent. The endeavour 
represents the conflict of two postulates, 
'I must' and 'I can't'; the fight continues 
indefinitely, with a constant waste of mis- 
applied effort. Once eradicate the mental 
habit of thinking that this effort is necessary, 
once postulate and apprehend the meaning 
of 'I wish' instead of these former contra- 
dictions, and what was difficult will become 
easy, and pleasure will be substituted for 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 95 

pain. We must cultivate, in brief, the 
deliberate habit of taking up every occupa- 
tion with the whole mind, with a living 
desire to carry each action through to a 
successful accomplishment, a desire which 
necessitates bringing into play every faculty 
of the attention. By use, the power de- 
velops, and it soon becomes as simple to 
alter a morbid taste which may have been a 
lifelong tendency as to alter the smallest of 
recently acquired bad habits. 
In all these efforts to apprehend and inertia 

leads to 

control mental habits, the first and only 
real difficulty is to overcome the preliminary 
inertia of mind in order to combat the sub- 
jective habit. The brain becomes used to 
thinking in a certain way, it works in a 
groove, and when actuated, slides along the 
familiar, well-worn path; but if once it is 
lifted, as it were, it is astonishing how easily 
it may be directed. At first it will have 



narrow- 
ness. 



96 HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 

a tendency to return to the old groove and 
work as before by means of one mechani- 
cal, unintelligent operation, but the groove 
soon fills, and though, thereafter, we may 
be able to use the old path if we choose, we 
are no longer bound to it. 

In concluding this brief note on mental 

habits I turn my attention particularly 

We must t the many who say, 'I am quite content 

remS de°- as ^- am - ' ^° tnem I sa y> firstly, if you are 

not e oniy content to be the slave of habits instead of 

for our own 

sakes, but master of your own mind and body, you can 

for the 

sake of the have never realized the wonderful inheri- 

genera- 

hons stiii tance which is yours by right of the fact that 
you were born a reasoning, intelligent man 
or woman. But, I say, secondly, and this 
is of importance to the larger world, and is 
not confined to your intimate circle, 'What 
of the children?' Are you content to rob 
them of their inheritance, as, perhaps, you 
were robbed by your parents? Are you 



HABITS OF THOUGHT AND OF BODY 97 

willing to send them out into the world 
ill-equipped; dependent on precepts and in- 
cipient habits ; unable to control their own 
desires, and already well on the way to 
physical degeneration? Happily, I believe 
that the means of stirring the inert is being 
provided. The question of Eugenics — or the 
science of race culture — is being debated by 
earnest men and women; and the whole 
problem of contemporary physical degenera- 
tion is one which looms ever larger in the 
public mind. It is the problem which has 
exercised me for many years, and which 
is mainly responsible for the issue of this 
brochure, and in my next chapter I shall 
treat it in connection with the theory of 
progressive conscious control which I have 
outlined in the foregoing pages. 



98 RACE CULTURE AND THE 



VI 

RACE CULTURE AND THE TRAINING 
OF THE CHILDREN 

'In what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the 
mind; in what way to manage our affairs; in what way to 
bring up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; in what 
way to utilize those sources of happiness which nature supplies 
— how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage; how 
to live completely? And this being the great thing needful 
for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing which 
education has to teach. To prepare us for complete living is 
the function which education has to discharge.' — Herbert 
Spencer, Education 

EVERY child is born into the world 
with a predisposition to certain 
habits. For many months, the period 
varying with the sex and ability of the 
infant, its vital processes and movements 
are for all practical purposes independent 
of any conscious control, and the human 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 99 

infant remains in this helpless, dependent 
condition much longer than any other 
animal. The habits which the child evi- The chlld 

at birth. 

dences during this protracted period are ^^1" 

• • • anc * p° ten 

those hereditary predispositions which are tiaiities. 

L 

early developed by circumstance and en- 
vironment, habits of muscular uses, vital 
functioning, and of adaptability. If it were 
possible to analyze the tendencies of a child 
when it is, say, twelve months old, we could 
soon master the science of heredity, which 
is at present so tentative and uncertain 
in its deductions, but the child's potentiali- 
ties lie hidden in the mysterious groupings 
and arrangement of its cells and tissues; 
hid beyond the reach of any analysis. The 
child is our material ; within certain wide 
limits we may mould it into the shape we 
desire. But even at birth it is differentiated 
from other children; though our limits may 
be wide, they are fixed; nevertheless, within 



100 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

those limits our capacity for good and evil 
is very great. 
The two There are two methods by which a child 

methods 

fey which a learns. The first, and in earlier years the 

child ' J 

predominant, method is by imitation ; the 
second is by precept or directly administered 
instruction, positive or negative. 

With regard to the first method, parents 
of every class will admit the fact not only 
that children imitate those who are with 
them during those early, plastic years, but 
that the child's first efforts to assimilate 

itself to the conditions surrounding it are 

A child . ... „ 

learns based almost exclusively on imitation. For, 

speech and 

social despite the many thousand years during 

habits by 

imitation, whi^ some form of civilization has been in 
existence, no child has yet been born into 
the world with hereditary instincts tending 
to fit it for any particular society. Its 
language and manners, for instance, are 
modelled entirely on the speech and habits 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 101 

of those who have charge of it; the child 
descended from a hundred kings will speak 
the language and adopt the. manners of the 
East End should it be reared among these 
associations; and the son of an Australian 
aboriginal would speak the English tongue 
and behave as a civilized child if brought 
up with English people. 

No one denies this fact, it has been proved 
and accepted, yet we never seek to make a 
practical application of our knowledge. The 
science of heredity is still tentative and 
indeterminate, but no reasoning person can 
doubt from this and other instances that in 
the vast majority of cases, at least, the 
influence of heredity can be practically 
eradicated. Personally, I see very clearly, 
from facts of my own observation, that 
when the characteristics of the father and 
mother are analyzed, and their faults and 
virtues understood, a proper training of 



102 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

the children will prevent the same faults 
and encourage the same virtues in their 
children. 

To appreciate to the utmost the effect of 

training upon the children, we must re- 

The child's member that the first tastes, likes, or dis- 

first ten- 
dencies are \i^ es f the infant begin to be developed 

developed L 

few 'days during the first two or three days after 
and may, ' birth. Long bef ore the infant is a month 

even at 

thisage.be old, habits, tending to become fixed habits, 

checked or 

encour- have been developed, and if these habits 
are not harmful, well and good. The first 
sense developed is the sense of taste, a sense 
that develops very quickly and needs the 
most careful attention. Artificial feeding- 
is in itself a very serious danger, but when 
this feeding is in the hands of careless or 
ignorant persons the danger becomes in- 
creased a hundredfold. An instance of 
this is the common idea that considerable 
quantities of sugar should be added to the 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 103 

milk. This is done very often to induce 
the. child to take food against its natural 
desire. It may be that the child has been 
suffering from some slight internal derange- 
ment, and Nature's remedy has been to 
affect the child with a distaste for food in 
order to give the stomach a rest. Then the 
unthinking mother tempts the child with 
sugar, and all sorts of internal trouble may 
follow. But in such a case as this the taste 
for a particular thing, such as sugar, is 
encouraged, and apart from the direct 
harm which may result, the habit becomes 
the master of the child, and may rule it 
through life; the child, in fact, is sent out 
into the world the slave of the sense of 
taste. 

Unfortunately, in ninety cases out of a 
hundred, children up to the age of six or 
seven years are allowed to acquire very 
decided tastes for things which are harmful. 



104 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

Women are not trained for the sphere of 

motherhood, do not give these matters the 

First faults thought and attention they deserve, and 

committed 

tasrale 6 " nence they do not understand the most 
elementary principles concerning the future 
welfare of their offspring in such matters as 
feeding and sense guidance. Children are 
not taught to cultivate a taste for whole- 
some, nourishing foods, but are tempted, 
and their incipient habits pandered to, by 
such additions as the sugar I have more 
particularly cited. 

At the present time I know a child of five 
years old whose taste is already perverted 
by the method, or lack of method, I have 
indicated. The child dislikes milk unless 
undue quantities of sugar are added, will 
not eat such food as milk puddings or brown 
bread, and has a strong distaste for cream. 
It is almost impossible to make the child 
eat vegetables of any kind, but he is always 



A case in 
point. 



- TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 105 

ready to take large quantities of meat and 
sweets. The child is already suffering from 
mal-nutrition and serious internal derange- 
ment. The latter would be greatly im- 
proved by small quantities of olive oil taken 
daily, but it is only with the greatest diffi- 
culty that he can be induced to take it. 
If the child lives with his parents for 
the next ten years, he will grow into 
a weak and ailing boy, and will suffer 
from the worst, forms of digestive trouble 
and imperfect functioning of the internal 
organs. 

Apropos of this point, I remember hearing 
a question put to my friend, Dr. Clubbe of 
Sydney, by a London sj^ecialist, who asked 
what, in Dr. Clubbe 's opinion, was the pri- 
mary cause of the derangement of the natural 
working of a child's muscular mechanism and 
respiratory system. The answer was given 
without hesitation. 'Toxic poisoning as a 



106 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

result of artificial feeding.' The logic of 
this answer will be readily apprehended 
by the layman when he considers the inter- 
dependence of every part of the system, 
for in this case the nerve centres connected 
with the sensory apparatus of the digestive 
organs and the urea control also the 
respiratory processes. As a consequence, 
when these centres are dulled in their action 
as a result of toxic poisoning, there is a loss 
of activity in the processes of respiration, 
with consequent readjustments of those 
parts of the muscular mechanism more 
nearly concerned, and so the whole machine 
is thrown out of gear. 

Thus we see that in such instances the 
mischief begins very early in the life of the 
child, and it is carried on and exaggerated 
with every step in its development. Even 
in babyhood precept or coercion comes into 
play. When the child cries, little effort is 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 107 
made to discover the cause. Often the AnotbeT 

means by 

child is soothed by being carried up and Tensatioa 

may be 

down the room. It is wonderful how soon pandered 

to during 

the infant begins to associate some rudi- infanc y- 
ments of cause and effect; the child who is 
unduly pandered to will soon learn to cry 
whenever it desires to be rocked or dandled, 
and thus the foundations of pandering to 
sensation are quickly laid. 

But as the child comes to the observant 
age its habits begin to grow more quickly. 
We have admitted that a child imitates its 
parents or nurses in tricks of manner and 
speech, yet we do not stop to consider that 
it will also imitate our carriage of the body, 
our performance of muscular acts, even 
our very manner of breathing. It is a 
wonderful force this faculty for imitation 
and adaptation, one which we have at our 
command if we would only pause to con- 
sider how we may use it in the right way. 



108 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

The vast majority of wrong habits acquired 
by children result from their imitation of the 
imperfect models confronting them. But 
parents do how many parents attempt to put a right 
right model m0( jel before their children? How many 
children, learn to eradicate their own defects of pose 
and carriage, so that they may be better ex- 
amples to the child? How many in choosing 
a nurse will take the trouble to select a girl 
whom they would like their children to 
imitate? Very, very few, and the reason 
is simple. In the first place they do not 
realize the harmful effect of bad example, 
and in the second the great majority of 
The parents have so little perception of truth 

reasons 

for this, in this matter that they are incapable of 
choosing a girl who is a good specimen of 
humanity, and are sublimely unconscious 
of their own crookedness and defects. What 
then can we hope from 4hese parents who 
are, at the present time, so unfit, so in- 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 109 

capable of teaching their own children the 
primer of physical life? And I may note 
here that this principle has a wider appli- 
cation than that of the nursery ; it holds, also, 
in connection with the model of physical 
well-being set by the teachers in all primary 
and secondary schools. There is no need 
for me to elaborate this theme; the iniquity 
of allowing children to be trained in physical 
exercises — in our Board schools, for instance 
— by a teacher who is obviously physically 
unfit, is sufficiently glaring. 

The crux of the whole question is that 
we are progressing towards conscious control, 
and have not yet realized all that this prog- 
ress connotes. Children, as civilization 
becomes continually more the natural con- 
dition, evince fewer and fewer of their 
original, savage instincts. In early life they 
are dependent more and more upon their 
instructors and less upon sub-conscious 



110 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

IbimfT direction - Th e child of the present day, 
child" em once ^ has emerged from its first state of 
absolute helplessness, and before it has 
been trained and coerced into certain mental 
and physical habits, is the most plastic and 
adaptable of living things. It has at this 
stage the complete potentiality of conscious 
control which are to be developed by the 
eradication of certain hereditary tendencies 
or predispositions, but the usual procedure 
is to thrust certain habits upon it, without 
the least consideration of cause and effect, 
and insist upon these habits until they have 
become sub-conscious and passed from the 
region of intellectual guidance. 

I will take one instance as an example 

of this — the point of right- and left-handed- 

ness. We assume from the outset, and the 

An in- superstition is so old that its source is un- 

stance of 

the rigidity traceable, that a child must learn to depend 

of modern 

training. U p 0n j^s right hand, and despise the use 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 111 

of its left. This superstition has so sunk 
into ' our minds by repetition that it has 
become incorporated in our language. 'Dex- 
terous' stands for an admirable, and 'sinis- 
ter' for an inauspicious, quality; and we 
may even find ignorant people at the present 
day who say that they would never trust 
a left-handed person. As a result of this 
attitude and of the absolute rule laid down, 
that a child must learn to write and use its 
knife with the right hand only, the number 
of ambidexterous people is limited to the 
few who, by some initial accident, used 
their left hand by preference, and were 
afterwards taught to use their right. In 
a fairly wide experience I do not remember 
to have heard of a father or mother who 
has said 'this child may become an artist 
or a pianist,' for example, 'and may there- 
fore need to develop the sensitiveness and 
powers of manipulation of the left hand as 



112 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

well as the right'; though I have known 
many cases where much time and trouble 
had to be expended in acquiring the uses 
of the left hand later in life; such cases 
as those of persons suffering from writers' 
cramp, and dependent for their living on 
their ability to use a pen. 

I have cited this example of right-handed- 
This in- ness because it exhibits the pliability of the 

stance ex- x *^ 

pilabiiit^ P n ysi ca l mechanism in early life and the 

of the 

physical manner in which we thoughtlessly bind it 

mechanism 

«n early to some method of working, without ever 

life. 

stopping to think whether that method is 
good in itself, or whether it is the one best 
adapted for the conditions of life into 
which the child will grow. We thrust a 
rigid rule of physical life and mental out- 
look upon the children. We are not con- 
viced that the rule is the best, or even that 
it is a good rule; often we know, or would 
know if we gave the matter a moment's 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 113 

consideration, that in our own bodies the 
rule has not worked particularly well; but 
it is the rule which was taught to us, and 
we pass it on by precept, and by holding 
up our imperfections for imitation, and then 
wonder what is the cause of our present 
physical degeneration. 

In this note on race culture and the train- 
ing of children, I have thus far dwelt almost 
exclusively on the earlier years of child- 
hood; but I have much to say at some ! 
future time on the questions of primary and Later 

education. 

secondary education ; of the boy and girl The boy 

and girl- 

at school between the ages of, say, seven betwe e» 

& J ' the ages of 

and eighteen. No one who has read this s ? v * n and 

° eighteen, 

brochure with attention, and earnestly at- 
tempted to comprehend my point of view, 
will now be able to urge that the question 
of education, secular or religious, is outside 
my province, but, at the risk of being 
accused of repetition, I will state my case 



114 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

in this connection once again, briefly, as 
follows : 

The mental and physical are so inextri- 
cably combined that we cannot regard one 
without the other. 

In this matter of education I am, ad- 
mittedly, an iconoclast. I would fain break 
down the idols of tradition and set up new 
Training: conce pts. In no matters do we see more 

ana our ■*■ 

minppie- plainly the harmful effect of the rigid con- 

hension of . . 

the very vention than m this matter of teaching. 

word. 

We speak commonly of training the minds 
of children. It is a happy expression in its 
origin, and we still retain its proper intention 
when we aply the word to its uses in 
horticulture. The gardener does, indeed, 
train the young growth, draws it out to the 
light and warmth, leads it into the con- 
ditions most helpful for its development. 

But when we speak of training a child we 
never intend that we wish to draw it out, 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 115 

to let it expand and develop; we mean, on 
the contrary, that we wish to repress it 
mentally, to cut and twist it into strange 
shapes, and repress and stnnt it, in order 
that it may grow into the narrow, warped, 
blind shape into which we also were forced 
as children. 

In teaching, the first essential is to culti- 
vate the uses of the mind and body, and 
not, as is ordinarily the case, to neglect the 
instruments of thought and reason by the 
inculcation of fixed rules which have never 
been examined. Again, where ideas that 
are patently erroneous have already been 
formed, the teacher should take pains to 
apprehend these preconceptions, and in deal- 
ing with them should not attempt to over- 
lay them, but to eradicate them as far as 
possible before teaching or submitting the 
new and correct idea. I say 'teaching or 
submitting,' and perhaps the latter word 



116 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

better expresses my meaning, for by teaching 
I understand the placing of facts, for and 
against, before the child in such a way as 
to appeal to his reasoning faculties, and to 
his latent powers of originality. He should 
be allowed to think for himself, and should 
not be crammed with other people's ideas, 
or one side only of a controversial subject. 
Why should not the child's powers of in- 
telligence be trained? Why should they 
be stunted by forcing him to accept the 
preconceived ideas and traditions which! 
have been handed down from generation to 
generation, without examination, without 
reason, without inquiry as to their truth or 
origin. The human mind of to-day is suffer- 
ing partial paralysis by this method of 
forcing these unreasoned and antiquated 
principles upon the young and plastic in- 
telligence. 

The educational system, itself, is griev- 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 117 

ously inadequate and detrimental, as all 
thinking educationalists are aware, but the 
decision regarding the necessity for phys- 
ical exercise and 'deep-breathing' in our 
schools has added another evil. It is only 
necessary to study intelligently the work 
recently issued by the Education Depart- 
ment, in order to recognize the truth of this 
statement, and I intend in the near future 
to deal with that publication and demon- 
strate the effects of applying the principles 
and exercises embodied in it, for I am con- 
vinced that nothing can result from their 
application but complete chaos, physical and 
mental. 

To return to my general theory of training, 
I fear I must not particularize too definitely 
in some directions, but my instance of 
right-handedness has its application* What 
is our own creed or convention? Have we 
ever examined any detail of it by the light 



118 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

of our reason, tested it in its application 
to life and knowledge? Not in one case ont 
of a thousand, but we still believe ourselves 
to be reasoning creatures, and if our child 
should discover a trace of intelligence and 
originality, if he or she should question for 
one moment the infallibility of the law 
binding the parent, the law which parent or 
shoolmaster has never dared to question, 
then the rod descends on the unhappy child, 
and you insist that the child should believe 
that you are right beyond question, each 
and every one of you undeniably, per- 
The child petually, infallibly right. But my client 
diem. j g ^.j ie ^[i^ an( j on j^g behalf i plead that 

he may be allowed to choose, to exercise 
his reason and judgment, and expand the 
powers of his intelligence; for I know that 
when you limit him, when you bind him 
to fixed ideas, narrow his mind, and impart 
to him, deliberately, your own mental 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 119 

habits — despite the fact that you, your- 
selves, have never reasoned the matter, 
but have accepted what was given you 
without question — I know -that when you 
do this you unwittingly stereotype him 
in other ways. The children, the youths, 
the adults whom 1 want, are those with 
open minds, for these may be trained in the 
best sense of the word to an ideal of physical 
and mental completeness. I would repeat 
and emphasize the concluding sentences 
of Mr. Allen Upward 's delightful work, 
The New Word, which I have already 
quoted, and say with him, 'Give the child 
leave to grow. Give the child leave to live. 
Give the child leave to hope and to hope 
truly. . . . He is the plaintiff in this case. 
I say that he is mankind . . . and his 
birthright is the truth.' 

It is full time that we gave more earnest 
thought to this matter. I cannot in this 



120 RACE CULTURE AND THE 

con- brief outline dwell on the many phases of 

elusion. 

proper food, clothing, and physical training, 
and all those other points which we must 
consider, and that immediately. But I have 
very much to say on the subject, and hope 
to have an opportunity in the near future 
of elaborating my methods and of setting 
them out so that they may be practically 
and universally applied. But if by these 
few remarks I can rouse some interest in 
this world problem, I shall have done some- 
thing towards its solution. It is a problem 
which is very urgent at the present time, 
and is growing more urgent every day. All 
that we have done up to the present time 
is to enforce one or other rule upon the 
children as an experiment. For all the 
rules have been rigid in their enforcement, 
however unscientific in their conception. 
In place of these rules I look for an ideal 
which I believe to be comparatively easy 



TRAINING OF THE CHILDREN 121 

of realization. I look for, and already see, 
a method of training our children which 
shall make them masters of their own 
bodies; I look for a time when the child 
shall be so taught and trained that what- 
ever the circumstance which shall later 

surround it, it will without effort be able 

♦ 
to adapt itself to its environment, and be 

enabled to live its life in the enjoyment of 

perfect health, physical and mental. 



122 A POSTSCRIPT 



VII 
A POSTSCRIPT 

I HAD completed my first draft of this 
little brochure, and was • engaged in 
making certain corrections and additions 
to it, when I received the number of the 
British Medical Journal, dated June 18, 1910. 
The contents of that number are almost 
exclusively devoted to the consideration 
of Mental- and Faith-healing, and articles 
are contributed by such well-known English 
medical men as Sir Clifford Allbutt, Sir 
Henry Morris, H. T. Butlin, and William 
Osier. The coincidence was remarkable, 
for I found in this issue an epitome of the 
general attitude towards mental thera- 
peutics, ranging from a conception which 



A POSTSCRIPT 123 

I can only regard as primitive to the most 
detached and scientific analysis, but the 
real point of the coincidence was found in 
a review of a fifty-eight page brochure, 1 
by a German professor, a brochure which 
also formed the subject of a leading article. 
Very little study of this number of the 
British Medical Journal was necessary to 
convince me that I must devote another 
chapter to its consideration, for it came as a 
most apt confirmation of the whole tendency 
of my work and writing, and will now serve 
to illustrate the fact that even the most 
academic of professions is slowly groping 
its way in the direction I have endeavoured 
to indicate in this work without the encum- 
brance of that involved language and those 
modes of thought with which the scientific 
writer cautiously cloaks his expression. 

1 Die Psychische Krankenbehandlung in ihren Wissenschaft- 
lichen Grundlagen. By Berthold Kern. Berlin, 1910. 



124 A POSTSCRIPT 

Moreover, the daily press commented on 
this symposium of medical opinion, in many 
cases at some length, and I was not surprised 
to find that the comparatively lucid methods 
of journalism required that the writers should 
in some instances demand an explanation of 
the general tendency of these medical ex- 
pressions, and were strongly inclined to ask 
why, if undoubted cures had been acknowl- 
edged, so'me attempt had not been made to 
bring the multitudinous theories into line, to 
find some fundamental proposition or hypo- 
thesis which could be applied universally. 
Naturally we could not expect that the lay- 
man would discover the missing clue in the 
review and the leading article referred to 
above, for both notices were couched in 
scientific and cautious terms, and the use 
of headlines in the daily press has so 
affected the general sense of proportion that 
the most startling statement passes un- 



A POSTSCRIPT 125 

noticed unless sufficiently heralded and 
advertised by devices of type and superla- 
tive redundancies of language. But before 
I proceed to any statement of these views 
of Professor Kern, which are so startlingly 
in accord with those I have set forth above, 1 
I will examine briefly one or two of the 
opinions given by those eminent medical 
men whose names I have given. 

Sir Clifford Allbutt, who admits to being 
'painfully aware' that his reflections are 
'tentative and inconclusive,' falls back on 
the old a priori religious grounds, and 
founds his main argument on the influences 
of 'Solace, Reanimation, and Readjustment.' 
He is plainly conscious of the general in- 
applicability of his theory, and the following 
quotation illustrates forcibly enough how 
he has been forced to reject the possibilities 

l Also my pamphlet 'Re-education of Kinesthetic Systems.' 
London, 1908, now reprinted in this volume. 



126 A POSTSCRIPT 

of a wider hypothesis by his adherence to 
a narrowing conception. Thus, in speaking 
of religious forces he says : — 

f On the spiritual side the unquestionably genuine 
phenomena of Conversion point to such changes, to 
new tides so swift and voluminous as to swing the 
system out of previous equipoises, and to move to 
some large measure. And if unhappily the new 
equilibrium be too often transitory, if too often the 
bondage of older habits drags the system down again 
to its former and lower mean position, yet in many 
instances the new position is maintained perma- 
nently/ 

Here the inherent weakness lies in the 
phrase which I have put in italics. The 
reader who has followed my argument 
through this little work will see at once that 
Sir Clifford Allbutt's method of cure by 
faith or conversion does not generally affect 
the objective mind in its relation to the 
bodily functions. The change of habit is 
not permanent in the majority of cases, and 
even in the remnant where a new outlook 



A POSTSCRIPT 127 

persists, it is but a change from one habit 
to another, the new habit being no more 
under objective, conscious control than the 
old one. 

Sir Henry Morris finds a common base of 
'suggestion' common to all theories of 
mesmerism, hypnotism, animal magnetism, 
mental-healing, faith-healing, and Christian 
Science, and he defines 'suggestion' as the 
'enforcing influence of an idea,' but he is 
analytic rather than synthetic. I agree 
with much that he writes, especially with 
regard to what he terms 'The Creative Lie,' 
the ungrounded statement or suggestion 
which becomes the basis of a fashion, a 
scare, or a creed, as the case may be ; but the 
whole article, though scholarly, is chiefly 
destructive and not materially helpful, and 
under it all lies, apparently, that conception 
of a 'sub-conscious self,' which I have tried 
to controvert in my third chapter. 



128 A POSTSCRIPT 

Dr. H. T. Butlin, while he is prepared to 
admit that 'a case of true organic disease may 
be cured' (my own italics), seems to look 
always to faith as the agent, and for this 
reason I shall not discuss his article here, 
since it will fall under the general examina- 
tion of what must be understood by this 
vague term 'faith' and the same criticism 
applies also to the contribution of Dr. 
William Osier. 

A summary of these and other articles oy 
prominent medical men may be found in 
the following quotation from one of our 
leading morning journals: 'The general 
trend of scientific and medical thought just 
now leads more and more away from material 
theories, and whereas a few years ago the 
medical profession as a whole firmly refused 
to consider any form of treatment of which 
the essential factors could not be either 
handled in the form of apparatus or weighed 



A POSTSCRIPT 129 

in the balance as drugs, we now find the 
pendulum of medical thought swinging back 
to conceptions of mental and spiritual heal- 
ing.' I cannot but express my admiration 
for the direction in which the swing, of the 
pendulum is setting, at the same time ex- 
pressing also my regret that it is being held 
back by all the old encumbrances and 
rigidities of academic preconception and 
scientific methods. We can see plainly 
enough from this symposium of opinion 
that almost against its will, the medical 
profession has been forced to admit that 
cures which in more ignorant times would 
have been called miraculous, have been 
effected by mental agencies, that even 
organic diseases such as cancer have been 
eliminated without operations or the use 
of drugs. But still, desperately as it were, 
there is a clinging to some older form of 
explanation. Faith, suggestion, the con- 



130 A POSTSCRIPT 

ception of a sub-conscious self which is 
another form of the soul or spirit, are put 
forward to account for those things which 
seem unaccountable on the purely material 
hypothesis; but I have not found any 
theory in the articles I have so far instanced 
which puts forward any explanation of the 
phenomena that might reasonably be sup- 
posed to account for these various origins; 
not one of these eminent article writers has 
been able to lay a finger upon any common 
factor. 

Nevertheless, we are confronted with one 
word which is dominant, and by its iteration 
must produce an effect on the mind of all 
readers, whether of this issue of the British 
Medical Journal, or of the various notices 
which have since appeared in the daily press. 
That word is 'faith,' and because it is so 
prominent and so little understood, I feel 
that it is essential I should give some ex- 



A POSTSCRIPT 131 

planation of it in the light of my own 
principles. 

In the first place, it is, perhaps, hardly 
necessary for me to point out that faith in 
this connection need not be allied with any 
conception of creed or religion. It is true 
that this is the form in which we are most 
familiar with it in mental-healing, and the 
associations which are grouped round the 
word itself very commonly induce us to 
connect it with the conceptions that have 
had such a wide and general influence on the 
thoughts of mankind in all stages of civil- 
ization. But we have abundant evidence 
now before us that in healing it is the atti- 
tude of mind that is of the first importance, 
and that faith is every whit as effective 
when directed towards the person of the 
healer, a drug, or the medicinal qualities 
supposed to be possessed by a glass of pure 
water, as when it is directed to a belief in 



132 A POSTSCRIPT 

some supernal agency. This fact is indis- 
putable, and it is only because the latter 
form of faith is so much more widespread, 
inasmuch as the very essence of all religions 
necessitates an exercise of this quality, that 
this agency has effected a number of cures 
out of all proportion to those brought about 
by faith in some purely material object. 
What I here intend by faith, therefore, is 
its exercise in the widest sense and without 
any restriction of creed. 

So far as we can analyse the effect of 
what we call an act of faith on the mental 
processes, it would seem that it is opera- 
tive in two directions. The first is purely 
emotional. The patient having conceived 
a whole-hearted belief that he is going to 
be delivered from his pain or disease by 
the means of some agency supernal or 
material, experiences a sensation of pro- 
found relief and joy. He understands and 



A POSTSCRIPT 133 

believes that without effort on his own 
part he is to be cured by an apparent 
miracle, and the effect upon him is to produce 
a strong, if evanescent, emotional happi- 
ness. In this we have an exact parallelism 
between the patient whose cure is physical 
and material, and the convert whose cure 
is spiritual. Now it is widely acknowl- 
edged by scientists and the medical pro- 
fession generally that this condition of happi- 
ness is an ideal condition for the sufferer, 
that it is not only the most hopeful condition 
of mind, but that it actually produces 
chemical changes in the physical consti- 
tution, which changes are those most salu- 
tary in producing a vital condition of the 
blood, and hence of the organisms. 

The second direction in which this act 
of faith operates is to break down a whole 
set of mental habits, and substitute for them 
a new set. The new habits, may or may 



134 A POSTSCRIPT 

not be beneficial from the outset apart 
from the effect produced by the emotional 
state — which is hardly ever maintained for 
a long period — but even so the breaking 
down of the old habits of thought does 
produce such an effect as will in some cases 
influence the whole arrangement of the 
cells forming the tissues and dissipate a 
morbid condition such as cancer. 

Thus we see that this so-called act of 
faith is in reality purely material in its 
action, and there is no reason why we should 
have recourse to its to produce the same and 
greater effects. It may, perhaps, be asked 
by some objectors why we should seek to 
dismiss the act of faith since it undoubtedly 
produces these ideal conditions in some 
cases. The answer is obvious. Faith- 
healing is dangerous in its practice and un- 
certain it its results. It is dangerous, 
because in a majority of cases its professors 



A POSTSCRIPT 135 

seek in the first place to alleviate pain, 
which may be done, leaving the disease 
itself untouched, and, as I have already 
pointed out in this brochure, in such cases 
the disease will continue and eventually 
kill the patient, even though he may be 
able successfully to fight the pain. Faith- 
healing is uncertain in its results, because 
in addition to the danger I have mentioned, 
it merely substitutes one uncontrolled habit 
of thought for another. At first the new 
habit, because it is new, may bring about 
a change to a better condition, but if it 
remains it will, in its turn, become stereo- 
typed, and may just as well lead at last 
to a morbid condition as the old mental 
habit is superseded. For these reasons, 
which are trenchant enough, I think, I 
desire most earnestly to see all the present 
conceptions that surround this profession 
of faith-healing thrown aside in order that 



136 A POSTSCRIPT 

we may arrive at a sane and reasoned proc- 
ess of mental therapeutics. Let us now 
turn for a moment to the pronouncements 
of Professor Kern. 1 Omitting the philo- 
sophical aspects of his theory, I will begin 
by quoting a passage from the third column 
of the review on page 1499 of the number 
I have referred to, as follows : — 

' . . . dismissing any naive interaction theory, he 
(Professor Kern) firmly maintains there is a con- 
tinual transformation of mental into bodily processes 
in action during our whole life. "Mental processes, 
after they have become developed, accustomed, and 
habitual, become automatic, and finally purely bodily 
and mechanical."' 

On this point, I think I have already in- 
sisted sufficiently, and need only break 
my quotation in order to emphasize the 
similarity of thought between the opinions 

l Unfortunately I have not been able to obtain any English 

translation of the work cited above, and must therefore depend 
.... ._] 

on the very able expositions of the leader-writer and the reviewer 
published in the British Medical Journal for June 18, 1910. 



A POSTSCRIPT 137 

of Professor Kern, and those I had expressed 
before reading this notice. We come now 
to the question of treatment which the 
writer expounds thus : — 

'Turning to the application of his theory to mental 
therapeutics, Professor Kern discusses the means or 
methods of psychotherapy, the nature of their ac- 
tion, and the indications and conditions for their em- 
ployment. First with regard to therapeutic meas- 
ures, and accepting the fact that psychotherapy has 
as its point of application the ideal life, Professor 
Kern stands firmly on the ground that a sharp dis- 
tinction between psychic and somatic therapy is im- 
possible, seeing that the bodily and mental series are 
at bottom identical, and that psychic therapy must, 
therefore, depend on the employment of physical 
means of some order or another. The sole differ- 
ence between psycho-therapy and somato-therapy 
lies in the fact that the former aims at engaging and 
influencing the consciousness of the subject, whereas 
the latter does not. Under theraputic means, there- 
fore, Professor Kern includes all stimuli . . . which 
are capable of setting in activity some, or inhibiting 
other, neuro-cerebral tracts which, either by racial 
or individual use, have acquired certain associations 



138 A POSTSCRIPT 

and memorial or emotional values, and which, being 
regarded subjectively, are conscious or mental in 
character. It will be observed that use, which is 
also the essence of recollection, furnishes Professor 
Kern not only guidance as to the means of psycho- 
therapy, but also the fundamental explanation of 
its action ; that is, it is by the employment of definite 
and carefully chosen physical stimuli which excite 
neuro-cerebral complexes possessing marked con- 
scious and particularly emotional values of service 
to the individual, that psychotherapy must act.' 

This is, with minor exceptions, merely 
a scientific statement of the theory I have 
put forth, and I need only confirm the like- 
ness by one more note from Professor Kern's 
book, this time a translation of a short pas- 
sage provided by the writer of the leading- 
article in the British Medical Journal: — 

'We have here not merely co-ordination, not 
merely parallelism, but transformation. The sup- 
posed antithesis, the difference in kind between 
mental and bodily processes, vanishes under our 
hands, and their identical nature presses upon us 



A POSTSCRIPT 139 

irresistibly if we are sufficiently unprejudiced and 
not self-deceived by false conceptions, such as "un- 
conscious thought" and the like.' 

Professor Kern's theory is thus seen to be 
the same in all essentials as that which I have 
held for many years, upon which I have based 
the principles of my practice, and which 
I have thus put to the one and only test. 
My experience during seventeen years has 
been by no means a small one, and perhaps 
no better proof could be afforded of the 
successful working of the theory when ap- 
plied to the facts of physical life, than the 
issue of this brochure and my own very 
earnest desire that the principles and de- 
tails of my methods should in the near 
future be made more widely known. 

For it is essential that the peoples of 
civilization should comprehend the value 
of their inheritance, that outcome of the 
long process of evolution which will enable 



140 A POSTSCRIPT 

them to govern the uses of their own physical 
mechanisms. By and through conscious- 
ness and the application of a reasoning in- 
telligence, man may rise above the powers 
of all disease and physical disabilities. This 
triumph is not to be won in sleep, in trance, 
in submission, in paralysis, or in anaesthesia, 
but in a clear, open-eyed, reasoning, de- 
liberate consciousness and apprehension of 
the wonderful potentialities possessed by 
mankind, the transcendant inheritance of 
a conscious mind. 



THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF A 
NEW METHOD OF RESPIRATORY 
RE-EDUCATION 



'Who'ever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the highest truth, 
lest it should be too much in advance of the time, may reassure 
himself by looking at his acts from an impersonal point of view. 
. . . It is not for nothing that he has in him these sympathies with 
some principles and repugnance to others. He, with all his capacities, 
and aspirations, and beliefs, is not an accident, but a product of the 
time. He must remember that while he is a descendant of the past 
he is a parent of the future; and that his thoughts are as children 
born to him, which he may not carelessly let die.' — Herbert Spencer 



INTRODUCTORY 

IT may be of interest to iny readers to 
know that the method I have founded 
is the result of a practical and unique ex- 
perience, for my knowledge was gained — 

1. While vainly attempting to eradicate 
personal, vocal, and respiratory defects by 
recognized systems. 

2. While afterwards putting into practice 
certain original principles, which enabled 
me to eradicate these defects. 

3. While giving personal demonstrations 
of the application of these principles from 
a respiratory, vocal, and health-giving point 
of view. 

I first imparted the method thus evolved 
to patients recommended by medical men 



144 INTRODUCTORY 

over ten years prior to June 1904. At 
that date I introduced it to leading London 
medical men, who, after investigation, de- 
cided that the method was, as one doctor 
put it, 'the most efficient known to [him].' 
The method makes for — 

In Education : 

1. Prevention of certain defects herein- 

after referred to. 

2. Adequate and correct use of the 

muscular mechanisms concerned 
with respiration. 

In Re-education : 

1. Eradication of certain defects 

hereinafter referred to. 

2. Co-ordination in the use of the 
« muscular mechanisms concerned 

with respiration. 

The result of (2) is not only to make that 
function efficient, but also to insure that 



INTRODUCTORY 145 

normal activity and natural massage of the 
internal organs so necessary to the adequate 
performance of the vital functions and the 
preservation of a proper condition of 
health. 

F. Matthias Alexander 

22 Army and Navy Mansions, 

Victoria Street, London, S.W., 
January, 1907. 



THE THEORY OF RESPIRATORY 
RE-EDUCATION 

THE artificial conditions of modern civil- 
ized life, among which is comparative 
lack of free exercise in the open air, are con- 
ducive to the inadequate use of breathing 
power. Indulgence in harmful habits of 
feeding and posture have caused these same 
habits, by heredity and unconscious imita- 
tion, to become 'second nature' in the great 
majority of adults to-day, and frequently in 
children, even at an early age. 

The normal condition of vigor in the 
action of the component parts of the res- 
piratory mechanisms is greatly interfered 
with; general nervous relaxation is brought 

147 



148 THE THEORY OF 

about, and a feeble, flabby action becomes 
permanent. 

Some muscles of the thoracic mechanism 
are used solely for regular performance of 
the breathing movements which were never 
intended by Nature to monopolize the par- 
ticular act, but only io serve as a relief or 
change, while those which should take the 
lead remain entirely inert for the greater 
part of life; hence arises a condition in 
which the posture, the symmetry of the 
body, the graceful normal curves of the whole 
frame, suffer alteration and change. 

The capacity and mobility of the thorax 
(chest) are decreased, its shape (particularly 
in the lumbar region, clavicles, and lower 
slues of the chest) is changed in a harmful 
way, and the abdominal viscera displaced; 
while the heart, lungs and other vital organs 
are allowed to drop below their normal posi- 
tion. Inadequate holding-space of the thorax 



RESPIRATORY EDUCATION 149 

— which means a distinct lessening of the 
'vital capacity' — and displacement of the 
vital organs within it, are great factors in 
retarding the natural activity of the parts 
concerned, and are thereby responsible for 
^oi r inability fully and naturally to perform 
their functions. The natural chemical changes 
in the human organism cannot, under these 
circumstances, be adequate. 

The serious interference with the circu- 
latory processes, and the inadequate oxy- 
genation of the blood, mean that the system 
win not be properly nourished and cleansed 
of impurities, for the action of the excretory 
processes will be impeded, and the whole 
organism slowly but surely charged with 
foreign matter, which, sooner or later, causes 
acute symptoms of disease. 

It will at once be understood that the 
defects enumerated produce distinct de- 
terioration in the condition of the different 



150 THE THEORY OF 

organs of the body, and it is well known 
that an organ's power of resistance to 
disease depends upon the adequacy of its 
functioning power, which in turn depends 
upon adequate activity. 

Eecords exist which prove that the Chinese 
physicians employed breathing exercises in 
the treatment of certain diseases 2000 b.c. 
It is therefore obvious that the people con- 
cerned had reached — 

1. A stage in their evolution which corre- 

sponds with that of our time — i.e., 
demanding re-education. 

2. A stage of observation of cause and 

effect similar to that of to-day, which 
led them to see the need of re-educa- 
tion, such re-education being essential 
to the restoration of the natural con- 
ditions present at birth in every 
normal babe, though gradually de- 



RESPIRATORY EDUCATION 151 

tenorated under conditions of modern 
life. 

In recent years the following members of 
the medical profession have urged the in- 
estimable value of the cultivation and de- 
velopment of the respiratory mechanism, 
and their conclusions have been borne out 
by the practical results 'secured by res- 
piratory re-education combined with proper 
medical treatment. 

Medical Opinions concerning the Evil 
Effect of Interference with and 
Inadequate Use of the Respiratory 
Processes 

Dr. Scanes Spicer, Surgeon, Diseases of 
the Throat, St. Mary's Hospital, in a debate 
on the value of 'Respiratory Exercises, etc.,' 
published in the British Medical Journal, 
vol. ii., 1902, p. 690, said: 'As a matter 



152 THE THEORY OF 

of fact, the manner of breathing of every 
child, just as much as its food and clothing, 
housing and air, exercise, bathing, and 
education, require constant and unremitting 
attention from the moment of birth.' 

Mr. W. Arbuthnot Lane, surgeon to Guy's 
Hospital, in his lecture published in the 
Lancet, December 17, 1904, p. 1697, urges 
that reduction in the respiratory capacity 
is a very great factor in lowering the activity 
of all the vital processes of the body, and 
that in the first instance inadequate aeration 
and oxygenation is the result of serious 
alteration in the abdominal mechanisms, 
and afterwards the insufficient aeration 
impairs the digestive processes. 

Dr. Hugh A. McCallum, in his clinical 
lecture on 'Visceroptosis' (dropping of t]\p 
viscera), as published in the British Medical 
Journal, February 18, 1905, p. 345, points 
out that over ninety per cent, of the femajes 



* RESPIRATORY EDUCATION 153 

suffering from neurasthenia (exhaustion of 
nerve force) are victims of visceroptosis, 
and that the conditions present are bad 
standing posture, imperfect use of the lower 
zone of the thorax, and the lack of tone in 
the abdominal muscular system which leads 
to defective intra-abdominal pressure. He 
also mentions that Dr. John Madison Taylor 
of Philadelphia and Keith of England were 
the two first to point out that the origin of 
this disease begins in a faulty position and 
use of the thorax. 

In a leading article in the Lancet, 
December 24, 1904, p. 1796: 'Whatever 
may be the causes, it is certain that an 
increasing number of town-dwellers suffer 
from constipation and atony of the colon, 
and that purgatives, enemata, and massage 
are powerless to prevent their progress from 
constipation to coprostasis.' 



154 THE THEORY OF * 

Convalescents 

The value of respiratory re-education in 
the treatment of convalescents was pointed 
out recently (1905) by M. Siredey and 
M. Rosenthal in a paper read at a meeting 
of the Societe Medicale des Hopitaux. 

Excerpt from the Lancet, February 18, 
1905, p. 463: 

'They said that respiratory insufficiency 
was one of the causes of the general debility 
which showed itself after an acute illness. 
It was easily recognized by the following- 
symptoms, which the patient presented — 
namely, thoracic insufficiency, shown by 
absence or impairment of the movements 
of the thorax; and diaphragmatic insuffi- 
ciency, shown by immobility or recession of 
the abdomen during inspiration — a con- 
dition met with in pseudo-pleurisy of the 
bases of the lungs. 



RESPIRATORY EDUCATION 155 

'Respiratory re-education was, in their 
opinion, the specific treatment for respiratory 
insufficiency. In the case of convalescents 
it constantly produced a progressive three- 
fold effect — namely, expansion of the 
thorax, diuresis, and increase of weight. 
It promoted in a marked degree the recupera- 
tion of the vital functions which followed 
acute illness, and the general health of the 
patients improved rapidly. It ought to be 
combined with other forms of treatment, 
and the action of the latter was enhanced 
by it.' 

The matter of preventing defective and 
restoring proper action clearly calls for 
attention. The foregoing will enable the 
reader definitely to understand what is 
necessary — viz. : 

1. In Prevention. — The inculcation of a 
proper mental attitude towards the 
act of breathing in children, to be 



156 RESPIRATORY EDUCATION 

followed by those detailed instruc- 
tions necessary to the correct practice 
of such respiratory exercises as will 
maintain adequate and proper use 
of the breathing organs. 
2. In Restoration. — A body possessing one 
or other or all of the defects previ- 
ously named will need re-education 
in order to eradicate the defects 
brought about by bad habits, etc., 
and restore a proper condition. As 
the breathing mechanism is ordinarily 
unconsciously controlled, it is neces- 
sary, in order to regain full efficiency 
in the use of it, to proceed by way of 
conscious control until the normal 
conditions return. Afterwards, when 
perfected, unconscious control — as it 
originally existed prior to respiratory 
and physical deterioration — will super- 
vene. 



ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED 157 



II 

ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED AND FACTS 
TO BE REMEMBERED IN THE THE- 
ORY AND PRACTICE OF RESPIRA- 
TORY RE-EDUCATION 

'Each faculty acquires fitness for its function by performing 
its function; and if its function is performed for it by a substi- 
tuted agency, none of the required adjustment of nature takes 
place; but the nature becomes deformed to fit the artificial 
arrangements instead of the natural arrangements.' — Herbert 
Spencer 

ANYTHING that makes for good may 
be rendered harmful in its effect 
by injudicious application or improper use, 
and many authorities have referred to this 
fact in connection with breathing exercises. 
For the guidance of my readers I will detail 
some of the harmful results which accrue 
from the attempt to take what are known 



158 ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED 

as 'deep breaths' during the practice of 
breathing and physical exercises, in accord- 
ance with instructions set down and principle 
advocated in recognized breathing systems. 
At the outset, let me point out that 
respiratory education, or respiratory re- 
education will not prove successful unless 
the mind of the pupil is thoroughly imbued 
with the true principles which apply to 
atmospheric pressure, the equilibrium of the 
body, the centre of gravity, and to positions 
of mechanical advantage where the alternate 
expansions and contractions of the thorax 
are concerned. In other words, it is essential 
to have a proper mental attitude towards 
respiratory education or re-education, and 
the specific acts which constitute the exercises 
embodied in it, together with a proper 
knowledge and practical employment of the 
true primary movement in each and every 
act. 



AND FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED 159 

I may remark that I recognized this factor 
and put it to practical use over twelve 
years ago, but it has been quite overlooked 
or neglected in the other systems formulated 
before and since that time. In fact, when 
I introduced my method to leading London 
medical men they quickly admitted the 
value of this important factor, and expressed 
their surprise that it had not been pre- 
viously advocated as such, seeing that from 
a practical point of view it is so essential, 
not only in the eradication of respiratory 
faults or defects (re-education), but also in 
preventing them (education). 

A proper mental attitude, let me repeat, 
then, is all-important. From the absence 
of it arise many of the serious defects 
ordinarily met with in the respiratory 
mechanism of civilized people, all of which 
are exaggerated in the practice of customary 
'breathing exercises.' 



160 ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED 

1. 'Sniffing' or 'Gasping.' — If the 'deep 
breath' be taken through the nasal passages 
there will be a loud 'sniffing' sound and 
collapse of the ahe nasi, and if through the 
mouth, a 'gasping' sound. The pupil has 
not been told that if the thorax is expanded 
correctly the lungs will at once be filled with 
air by atmospheric pressure, exactly as a 
pair of bellows is filled when the handles are 
pulled apart. 

It is a well-known fact, but one greatly 
to be regretted, that all who have taken 
lessons in London from teachers of breathing 
and physical exercises actually are told 
that, in order to get the increased air-supply, 
they must 'sniff.' 

But, worse than this, many medical men 
are guilty of similar instruction to their 
patients ; and when giving a personal de- 
monstration of how a 'deep breath' should 
be taken, they 'sniff' loudly and bring 



AND FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED 161 

about a collapse of the alae nasi, throw back 
the head, and interfere with the centre of 
gravity. Of course, it is only necessary 
to remind them of the law of atmospheric 
pressure as it applies to breathing, and 
they at once recognize their error. 

Such a state of affairs serves to show that 
lamentable ignorance prevails even in the 
twentieth century in connection with so 
essential a function as breathing; and re- 
flection causes one to realize the seriousness 
of a situation which, from some points of 
view, is really pathetic. 

Most people, if asked to take a 'deep 
breath,' will proceed to — I use the phrase 
spoken by thousands of people I have ex- 
perimented upon — 'suck air into the lungs 
to expand the chest,' whereas, of course, 
the proper expansion of the chest, as a 
primary movement, causes the alae nasi to 
be dilated and the lungs to be instantly 



162 ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED 

filled with air by atmospheric pressure, with- 
out any harmful lowering of the pressure. 

2. During this harmful 'sniffing' act it will 
be seen that — 

(a) The larynx is unduly depressed ; likewise the 

diaphragm. 

The undue strain, cuased by this unnatural 
crowding down of the larynx and its acces- 
sories, is undoubtedly the greatest factor in 
the causation of throat troubles, especially 
when professional voice-users are concerned 
as the practical tests I have made during 
the past twelve years have abundantly proved. 
My success in London with eminent members 
of the dramatic and vocal profession, sent 
to me by their medical advisers, might be 
mentioned in this connection. 

(b) The upper chest is unduly raised, and in most 

cases the shoulders also. 

(c) The back is unduly hollowed in the lumbar 

region. 

(d) The abdomen is generally protruded, and there 

is abnormally deranged intra-abdominal pres- 
sure. 

(e) The head is thrown too far back, and the neck 



AND FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED 163 

duly tensed and shortened at a time when 
it should be perfectly free from strain. 

(f) Parts of the chest are unduly expanded, while 

others that should share in the expansion are 
contracted, particularly the back in the 
lumbar region. 

(g) During the expiration there is an undue falling 

of the upper chest, which harmfully increases 
the intrathoracic pressure, and so dams back 
the blood in the thin-walled veins and auricles, 
and hampers the heart's action. 

( h ) Undue larynx depression prevents the proper 
placing and natural movements of the tongue, 
the adequate and correct opening of the 
mouth for the formation of the resonance 
cavity necessary to the vocalization of a true 
'Ah.' 

It is well known that the tongue is attached 
to the larynx, and therefore any undue de- 
pression of the latter must of necessity inter- 
fere with the free and correct movements of 
the former. 

(i) The head is thrown back to open the mouth. 

This is a common fault, even with pro- 
fessional singers, and a moment's considera- 
tion of the movements of the jaw — from an 
anatomical point of view — will show that it 



164 ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED 

should move downwards without effort, and 
that it is not necessary to move the head back- 
wards in order to effect the opening of the 
mouth by the lowering of the jaw, since, as a 
matter of fact, the latter movement will be 
more readily and perfectly performed if the 
head remains erect without any deviatory 
posture. 

Every voice-user should learn to open the 
mouth without throwing back the head. 
> Very distinct benefits will accrue to those 

who succeed in establishing this habit. 

It is well known that the practice of 
'physical-culture' exercises has caused 
emphysema, and it has been suggested that 
unnatural breathing exercises have also been 
responsible for the condition. I refer to 
this because I wish to show that it would 
not be possible to cause emphysema by the 
method of respiratory education and re- 
education I have formulated. 

Emphysema may be caused by — 

. 1. The reduction of the elasticity of the lung cells 



AND FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED 165 

and tissue resulting from undue expansion 
of the lungs and their being held too long 
in this expanded position. 

2. The undue intrathoracic pressure — during an 
attempt at expiration or some physical act — 
upon the air cells, which remain filled with 
air in consequence of the means of egress 
from the lungs being temporarily closed by 
the approximation of vocal reeds and ven- 
tricular bands. 



If the fundamental principles of my 
method are observed, these conditions cannot 
be present during the practice of the exer- 
cises, and, therefore, emphysema not only 
cannot be produced, but even is likely to be 
remedied when previously existing. 

In the first place, the tendency unduly 
to expand any part or parts of the thorax 
in particular, to the exclusion of other parts, 
is prevented by the detailed personal in- 
struction given in connection with each 
exercise in its application to individual 



166 ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED 

defects or peculiarities of the pupil. More- 
over, the mechanical advantages in the 
body-pose and chest-poise assumed in these 
exercises cause them to be performed with 
the minimum of effort, and lead to an even 
and controlled expansion of the whole 
thorax. There is not, as is too often the case, 
an undue expansion of one part of the chest, 
while other parts, which should share in 
such expansion, are being contracted — a 
condition that obtains, for instance, when 
the diaphragm is unduly depressed in in- 
spiration. There is, then, a sinking above 
and below the clavicles, a hollowing in the 
lumbar region of the back, undue protrusion 
of the abdomen, displacement of the ab- 
dominal viscera, reduction in height, undue 
depression of the larynx, and the centre of 
gravity is thrown too far back. 
• The striking feature in those who have 
practised customary breathing exercises is an 



AND FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED 167 

undue lateral expansion of the lower ribs, 
when several or all of the above defects are 
present. This excessive expansion gives an 
undue width to the lower part of the chest, 
and there are thousands of young girls who 
present quite a matronly appearance in 
consequence. The breathing exercises im- 
parted by teachers of singing are particu- 
larly effective in bringing about this undesir- 
able and harmful condition. 

The guiding principle that should be invariably 
kept in mind by both teacher and pupil is to secure, 
with the minimum of effort, perfect use of the com- 
ponent parts of the mechanisms concerned in respira- 
tion and vocalization. Then, sooner or later, ade- 
quate mobility, power, speed, absolute control, and 
artistic manipulation must follow. 

Most people — teachers as well as pupils — 
when thinking of or practising breathing 
exercises, have one fixed idea — viz., that 
of causing a great expansion of the chest, 
whereas its proper and adequate contraction 



168 ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED 

is equally important. There are, indeed, 
many cases in which the expiratory move- 
ment calls for more attention than the 
inspiratory. 

Careful observation will show that those 
who take breath by the 'sniffing' or 'gasp- 
ing' mode of breathing always experience 
great difficulty with breath-control in speech 
and song, or during the performance of 
breathing exercises. This applies equally 
whether the air is expelled through the 
mouth or nasal passages, and is due to the 
imperfect use of the thoracic mechanism, and 
the consequent loss of mechanical advan- 
tage already referred to at the end of the 
inspiration. 

The natural and powerful air-controlling 
power is, therefore, absent, and its absence 
Causes undue approximation of the vocal 
reeds, and probably the ventricular bands 
rn the endeavour to prevent the escape of 



AND FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED 169 

air, which air, when once released under 
these conditions, is thereafter inadequately 
and imperfectly controlled. 

There is considerable increase in this lack 
of breath-control in vocal use, the upper 
chest being more rapidly and forcibly de- 
pressed during the vocalization. 

It is not a matter of surprise, for, if a 
mechanical advantage is essential to the 
proper expansion of the thorax for the intake 
of air, it is equally essential to the controlling 
power during the expiration; and if during 
the expiration the upper chest is falling, it 
clearly proves that the advantage indicated 
is not present. 



170 THE PRACTICE OF 



III 

THE PRACTICE OP RESPIRATORY 
RE-EDUCATION 

Habit in Relation to Peculiarities and 
Defects 

'If we contemplate the method of Nature, we see that every- 
where vast results are brought about by accumulating minute 
actions.' — Herbert Spencer 

THE mental and physical peculiarities 
or defects of men and women are the 
result of heredity or acquired habit, and the 
most casual observer has noticed that certain 
peculiarities or defects are characteristic 
of the members of particular families, as 
for instance, in connection with the standing 
and sitting postures, the style of walking, 
the position of the shoulders and shoulder- 



RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 171 

blades, the use of the arm, and the use of 
the vocal organs in speech, etc. 

Such family peculiarities or defects are 
unconsciously acquired by the children, 
often becoming more pronounced in the 
second generation; such acquirements mak- 
ing for good or ill, as the case may be. I 
will, however, confine myself to an enumera- 
tion of those with a harmful tendency, as an 
understanding of bad habits is essential to 
considering the teaching principles adopted 
in my method of respiratory-physical re- 
education. 

The chief peculiarities or defects may be 
broadly indicated as — 

1. An incorrect mental attitude towards the res- 

piratory act. 

2. Lack of control over, and improper and in- 

adequate use of, the component parts of the 
different mechanisms of the body, limbs, and 
nervous system. 



172 THE PRACTICE OF 

3. Incorrect pose of the body and chest poise, 
and therefrom consequent defects in the 
standing and sitting postures ; the interfer- 
ence with the normal position and shape 
of the spine, as well as the rrbs, the costal 
arch, the vital organs, and the abdominal 
viscera. 



Re-education, when one or other or all 
of these peculiarities or defects are present, 
means eradication of existing bad habits, 
and the following will indicate some of the 
chief principles upon which the teaching 
method of this re-education is based : — 

That where the human machinery is con- 
cerned Nature does not work in parts, but 
treats everything as a whole. 

That a proper mental attitude towards 
respiration is. at once inculcated, and each 
and every respiratory act in the practice 
of the exercises is the direct result of 
Yojition; the primary, secondary, and other 
movements necessary to the proper per- 



RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 173 

formance of such act having first been de- 
finitely indicated to the pupil. 

It may prove of interest to mention that W. 
Marcet, M.D., F.R.S., and Harry Campbell, M.D.. 
B.S., London, are of opinion that volition as such 
makes a direct demand upon the breathing powers, 
quite apart from all physical effort, and with these 
great advantages, that, unlike the latter, it neither 
increases the production of waste products nor tends 
to cause thoracic rigidity, thus more or less retard- 
ing the movements of the chest. The experiments 
made by Dr. Marcet show that the duration of a 
man's power to sustain the muscle contraction neces- 
sary to raise a weight a given number of times de- 
pends upon the endurance of the brain-centres caus- 
ing the act of violation rather than upon the muscular 
power. An instance is quoted of a man who lifted a 
weight of 4 pounds 203 times, and who, after rest- 
ing and performing forced breathing movements, 
raised the same weight to the same height 700 times. 

Regarding muscle development and chest expan- 
sion, Dr. Harry Campbell has in his book on breath- 
ing taken the case of Sandow. His conclusion will 
prove of interest. He pointed out that Sandow 
claimed to be able to increase the size of the chest 
14 inches — that is, from 48 to 62 inches in circum- 



174 THE PRACTICE OF 

ference. Dr. Campbell then expressed the opinion 
that this increase is almost entirely the result of the 
swelling up of the large muscles surrounding the 
chest, and that most probably the increase in his bony 
chest (thorax) is not more than 2 to 3 inches, seeing 
that his 'vital capacity' is only 275 cubic inches. 

(For ten years past I have drawn the attention 
of medical men to the deception of ordinary chest 
measurements and to the evils wrought by the phys- 
ical training and the 'stand-at-attention' attitude in 
vogue in the army, and also to the harmful effects 
of the drill in our schools, where the unfortunate 
children are made to assume a posture which is 
exactly that of the soldier, whose striking character- 
istic is the undue and harmful hollow in the lumbar 
spine and the numerous defects that are inseparable 
from this unnatural posture.) 

There is such immediate improvement 
in the pose of the body and poise of the 
chest (whatever the conditions, excepting, 
of course, organized structural defects) that 
a valuable mechanical advantage is secured 
in the respiratory movements, and this is 
gradually improved by the practice until 



RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 175 

the habit becomes established, and the law 
of gravity appertaining to the human body 
is duly obeyed. 

The mechanical advantage referred to is of par- 
ticular value, for it means prevention of undue and 
harmful falling of the upper chest at the end of the 
expiration, which is always present in those who 
practise the customary breathing exercises, the pupil 
being then deprived of the mechanical advantage so 
essential to the proper performance of the next in- 
spiratory act. 

Then follows due increase in the move- 
ments of expansion and contraction of the 
thorax until such movements are adequate 
and perfectly controlled. 

Further, these expansions are primary 
movements in securing that increase in the 
capacity of the chest necessary to afford 
the normal oscillations of atmospheric pres- 
sure, without unduly lowering that pressure 
— opportunity to fill tlie lungs with air, 
while the contractions overcome the air 
pressure and force the air out of the lungs, 



176 THE PRACTICE OF 

and at the same time constitute the con- 
trolling power of the speed and length of 
the expiration. 

The excessive and harmful lowering of the 
air pressure in the respiratory tract, and 
the consequent collapse of the alae nasi, is 
prevented by so regulating the respiratory 
speed that the lungs are filled by atmos- 
pheric pressure. 

The value of this will be readily understood when 
it-is remembered that such lowering, which is always 
present in the 'sniffing' mode of breathing, causes 
collapse of the alae nasi. It also tends to cause con- 
gestion of the mucous membrane of the respiratory 
tract on the sucker system, setting up catarrh and its 
attendant evils, such as throat disorders, loss of voice, 
bronchitis, asthma, and other pulmonary troubles. 

From the first lesson the effect upon the 
splanchnic area is .such that the blood is 
more or less drawn away from it to the lungs, 
and is then evenly distributed to other parts 
of the body. The intra-abdominal pressure 



RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 177 

is more or less raised, and there is a gradual 
tendency to the permanent establishment 
of normal conditions. 

The use of bandages or corsets is to be condemned 
as treatment in protruding abdomen instead of 
adopting practical means to remove the cause. Such 
support to the abdominal wall is artificial and harm- 
ful, since it tends to make the muscles more flaccid. 
The respiratory mechanism should be re-educated, 
for this would mean a re-education or strengthening 
of the supports Nature has supplied. In other words, 
the sinking above and below the clavicles and the 
undue hollowing of the lumbar spine — the great 
factors in the direct causation of the protrusion of 
the abdomen — are removed, and a normal condition 
of the abdominal muscles established. This means a 
very decided improvement in the figure and general' 
health. 

The improvement in the abdominal conditions (the 
improved position of the abdominal viscera and the 
development of the abdominal muscles) is propor- 
tionate to that of the respiratory movements — a fact 
that can be readily understood when I point out that 
the movements of the parts are interdependent. 
When the faulty distension of the splanchnic area is 



178 THE PRACTICE OF 

present it will be found that the diaphragm is un- 
duly low in breathing; and when there is excessive 
depression of the diaphragm in respiration there is 
interference with the centre of gravity by displace- 
ment forward, and the compensatory arching back- 
ward in the lumbar region. 

After a time there is such improvement 
in the use of the component parts of the 
mechanism that an inspiration may, if de- 
sired, be secured by a depression of the 
diaphragm, while at the same moment the 
condition in the splanchnic area is actually 
improved. 

Improvement in respiratory exchange is 
secured by gradual increase in the expansions 
and contractions of the thorax, which in- 
crease the aeration of lungs, the supply of 
oxygen, and the elimination of C0 2 . 

The quantity of residual air in the lungs is 
greatly increased, and by always converting 
the expired air into a controlled whispered 
vowel during the practice of the breathing 



RESPIRATORY RE-EDUCATION 179 

exercises very great benefits accrue — nota- 
bly those derived from the prolonged 
interthoracic pressure necessary to force 
the adequate supply of oxygen into the 
blood and eliminate the due quantity of 
C0 2 . 

Employment of these whispered tones means the 
proper use of the vocal organs in a form of vocaliza- 
tion little associated with ordinary bad habits, and 
that perfect co-ordination of the parts concerned 
which is inseparable from adequately controlled 
whisper vocalization. 

There is a rapid clearing of the skin, the white 
face becoming a natural colour, and a reduction of 
fat in the obese by its being burnt off with the extra 
oxygen supply. 

This reduction in the weight and size is often quite 
remarkable, as also the development of the flaccid 
muscles of the abdominal wall and the consequent 
improvement in the activity of the parts concerned. 



180 CONCLUDING REMARKS 



CONCLUDING REMARKS 

THE foregoing will serve to draw atten- 
tion to the far-reaching and beneficial 
effects of what, for the lack of a more satis- 
factory and comprehensive name, I refer to 
as respiratory re-education, 

It is a method that makes for the main- 
tenance and restoration of those physical 
conditions possessed by every normal child 
at birth, the presence of which insures a 
proper standard of health, adequate resist- 
ance to disease, and a reserve power which, 
if a serious illness should occur, will serve to 
turn the tide at the critical moment towards 
recovery. The insurance of such a con- 
dition for a generation would mean the 
regeneration of the human race as consti- 



CONCLUDING REMARKS 181 

tuted to-day; and I have no hesitation in 
stating that the results secured during the 
past twelve years, and particularly during 
the past two and a half years in London 
in co-operation with leading medical men, 
justify me in asserting that the practical 
application of the principles of this new 
method in education and re-education will 
be invaluable in overcoming the disadvan- 
tages and bad habits of our artificial civilized 
life, and prove the great factor in success- 
fully checking the physical degeneration of 
mankind. 



RE-EDUCATION OF THE KINES- 
THETIC SYSTEMS CONCERNED 
WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OP 
ROBUST PHYSICAL WELL-BEING 



EDUCATION 

'It is because the body is a machine 
that education is possible. Education is 
the formation of habits, a superinducing 
of an artificial organization upon the natu- 
ral organization of the body; so that acts, 
which at first require a conscious effort, 
eventually become unconscious and mechan- 
ical. ' — Huxley 

RE-EDUCATION 

'It is because the body is a machine that 
(Re) education is possible. (Re) education 
is the formation of (New and Correct) 
habits, a (Re-instating of the Correct) 
artificial organization upon the natural or- 
ganization of the body; so that acts, which 
at first require conscious effort, eventually 
become unconscious and mechanical.' 

22 Army and Navy Mansions, 

Victoria Street, London, S.W. 

December, 1908. 

185 



THE DOCTRINES OF ANTAGONISTIC 
ACTION AND MECHANICAL AD- 
VANTAGE 

In the process of creating a co-ordina- 
tion one psycho-physical factor provides a 
position of rigidity by means of which the 
moving parts are held to the mode in which 
their function is carried on. 

This psycho-physical factor also consti- 
tutes a steady and firm condition which 
enables the Directive Agent of the sphere 
of consciousness to discriminate the action 
of the kinesthetic and motion agents which 
it must maintain without any interference 
or discontinuity. 

The whole condition which thus obtains 
is herein termed 'antagonistic action,' and 
the attitude of rigidity essential as a factor 
in the process is called the position of 
'mechanical advantage.' 

186 



KINESTHETIC SYSTEMS 187 



A PRESENTATION OF PRINCIPLES 
AND LAWS 

Exemplified in Mr. F. Matthias Alexander's Method 

OF THE 

RE-EDUCATION OF THE KINAES- 
THETIC SYSTEMS 

(Sensory Appreciation of Muscular Movement) 
Concerned with the Development of Robust Physical Well-being. 

BY this process of Re-education an 
effective installation is made of the 
reflex muscular systems involved through 
the creation of an intelligent directive power 
on the part of the individual, thus removing 
a crude and useless kinaesthesis, which must 
be regarded as either debauched or deformed, 
and establishing one of valid and unfailing 
function. 



188 RE-EDUCATION OF THE 

By the preliminary, and temporary, em- 
ployment of a group of exercises of ideo- 
motor nature an induction is gradually 
assured of an automatic sensori-motor 
activity, by which correct and healthy 
bodily movements and poses are always 
certain without further attention on the 
part of the individual, except such as a very 
brief daily exercise may demand". 

In explanation of the object, thus defined and of 
the mode in which that object is to be attained, the 
notice of the student is directed to the following 
postulates : — 

1. That when defects in the poise of the body, in 
the pose of the chest, in the use of the muscular 
mechanisms, and in the equilibrium are persent 
in the human being the condition thus evidenced 
is an undue rigidity of parts of the muscular 
mechanisms associated with undue Haccidity of 
others. This undue rigidity is always found in 
those parts of the muscular mechanisms which 

. are forced to perform duties other than those 
intended by nature, and are consequently ill- 
adapted for their function. 



KINESTHETIC SYSTEMS 189 

Herbert Spencer writes : — 

'Each faculty acquires fitness for its func- 
tion by performing its function ; and if its 
function is performed for it by a substituted 
agency none of the required adjustment of 
nature takes place ; but the nature becomes 
deformed to fit the artificial arrangements 
instead of the natural arrangements.' 

That it is essential at the outset of re-education 
to bring about the relaxation of the unduly 
rigid parts of the muscular mechanisms in order 
to secure the correct use of the inadequately 
employed and wrongly co-ordinated parts. 

In a previous publication, 'Why Deep 
Breathing and Physical Culture Exercises 
do more harm than good,' I have explained 
at length that Physical Exercises, as under- 
stood in present day 'physical-culture,' 
actually increase, in the defective subject, 
that rigidity of which the removal is 
primarily and vitally important. 

That all conscious effort exerted in attempts at 
physical action causes, in the great majority of 
the people of to-day, such tension of the 
muscular system concerned as to lead to 



190 RE-EDUCATION OF THE 

exaggeration rather than eradication of the 
defects already present. 

I may cite, as examples of such defects, 
faulty poise of the body and pose of the 
chest, unstable equilibrium (inability, for 
instance, to maintain equilibrium during 
simple movements), undue strain or in- 
correct use of isloated parts of the muscular 
system (such as the constant crowding 
down of the structures of the throat by 
strain placed upon the larynx and undue 
depression of that organ), and the perform- 
ance of functions by one part more properly 
discharged by another (as when the arms 
and neck are stiffened in performing acts 
which properly call for the perfect co-ordi- 
nation of the muscular mechanisms of the 
back. The stiffened necks and arms of the 
people of to-day are outward signs and 
tokens of the imperfect development and 
lack of the co-ordination of the muscular 
system of the back and spine. Such a con- 
dition is still being fostered and developed 
day by day in the children of our schools.) 

4. . That a directly conscious effort in the perform- 
ance of the exercise employed in the early stages 



KINESTHETIC SYSTEMS 191 

of re-education (a) implies that the pupil relies 
upon his own faulty sensations (that is, he is 
realizing his sensations) for guidance in the 
correct performance of such exercises — guid- 
ance which it is not in the power of the incoher- 
ent and often absolutely misleading sensations 
of the imperfectly co-ordinated subject to give ; 
and (b) produces, as a result of the tension in- 
duced by stfch effort, thoracic rigidity and 
breathlessness — the one making the correct per- 
formance of the exercises impossible, the other 
interfering with the controlling forces concerned. 

5. That it is harmful for teacher and pupil alike 
if the latter is made to assume, during his 
exercises, what is usually considered the correct 
standing position. It is obvious that the same 
position cannot be correct for every human 
being, nor even for all who are properly con- 
ordinated. 

Take the case, for example, of a boy who 
stoops very much, and combines a sinking 
above and below the clavicles with abnor- 
mal protrusion of the shoulder-blades. If 
he is told to 'stand up straight' he will at 
once make undue physical effort to carry 
out the order thus crudely given, with the 



192 RE-EDUCATION OF THE 

result that the shoulders will be thrown 
backward and upward, the shoulder-blades 
still further protruded, and the front and 
upper parts of the chest unduly elevated 
and expanded. There will also be a narrow- 
ing, a sinking, and a flabbiness of the lower 
dorsal and posterior thoracic region, with 
corresponding fixed protrusion and rigidity 
of the front chest wall, undue arching of 
the lumbar spine, shortening of the boyd 
and harmful stiffening of the arms and 
. neck; instead of a fullness, broadness and 
firmness of the back, with free mobility of 
the chest walls, resulting in normal curve of 
the lumbar region and comparative length- 
ening of the spine. With the arms hanging 
vertically, the relative position of that part 
of the thorax where the lungs are situated 
will be seen to be in front of the arms, -in- 
stead of being, as it should be, behind them. 
In such a position, the boy feels helpless, 
and tires rapidly owing to the imperfect co- 
ordination, and any attempt to accustom him 
to this erect posture will ultimately result 
in deterioration rather than improvement. 

Now the narrowing and arching of the 



KINESTHETIC SYSTEMS 193 

back already referred to is exactly opposite 
to what is required by nature, and to that 
which is obtained in re-education, viz. 
widening of the back and a more normal 
and extended position of the spine. More- 
over, if these conditions of the back be first 
secured, the neck and arms will no longer 
be stiffened, and the other faults will be 
eradicated. 

That in order to obviate the evils enunciated in 
the last two postulates the teacher must himself 
place the pupil in a position of mechanical 
advantage, from which the pupil, by the mere 
mental rehearsal of orders which the teacher 
will dictate, can insure the posture specifically 
correct for himself, although he is not, as yet, 
conscious of what that posture is. 

I append a simple example of what is meant 
by mechanical advantage. Let the pupil 
sit as far back in a- chair as possible. The 
teacher, having decided upon the orders 
necessary for securing the elongation of 
the spine, the freedom of the neck {i.e. 
requisite natural laxness) and other con- 
ditions desirable to the particular case in 
hand, will then ask the pupil to rehearse 



194 RE-EDUCATION OF THE 

them mentally, at the same time that he 
himself renders assistance by the skilful 
use of his hands. Then, holding with one 
hand one or two books, as the case may 
be, against the inner back of the chair, he 
will rely upon the pupil inwardly rehears- 
ing the orders necessary to maintain and 
improve the conditions present, while he, 
with the other hand placed upon the pupil's 
shoulder, causes the body gradually to 
incline backwards until its weight is taken 
by the back of the chair. The shoulder- 
blades will, of course, be resting against 
the books. 

7. That the orders to be dictated by the teacher 
and mentally rehearsed by the pupil are of two 
kinds : — 

(a) Concerning definite inhibition. 

(b) Concerning definite performance. 

I may briefly explain (a) by stating that the 
teacher will have to deal with incorrect 
movements unconsciously performed. These 
movements, occurring at the moment when 
he dictates the orders necessary to bring 
about co-ordination of the different parts 
of the mechanism, assert themselves and 



KINESTHETIC SYSTEMS 195 

become primary, and hinder the perform- 
ance of the correct and co-ordinated move- 
ments as ordered. It is, therefore, as 
necessary to order the inhibition of incorrect 
and unconsciously performed acts as to give 
orders which will secure the co-ordinated 
use of the mechanisms involved. Therefore, 
when the teacher has discovered the errors 
unconsciously committed by the pupil when 
beginning to rehearse the correct orders, he 
will draw attention to them, and give a 
definite order concerning what is not to be 
done, e.g., the peculiar bad habit, perhaps, 
of a lifetime. This negative order must 
precede all positive commands. In other 
words, the order or orders concerning what 
is not to he done are to be considered as 
primary, and those concerning what is to 
be done as secondary. 

That in order to secure the results desired, it is 
essential to teach the pupil to rehearse the 
dicated orders, not to do exercises, i.e., to 
devote his attention to apprehending the in- 
structions of his teacher — those means whereby 
he is to gain what he requires, and not, as he 
wil be apt to do, to concentrate his thoughts 



196 RE-EDUCATION OF THE 

upon the end sought. The orders are necessarily 
prior to their execution, and if those dictated 
by the teacher are correct for the particular case 
in hand, the mental realization by the pupil will 
be automatically followed by their correct per- 
formance — a co-ordinated association with the 
ideo-motor impulses. 

It is important to remember, however, 
that in rehearsing the orders dictated by 
his teacher, the untrained pupil will not 
merely assent to them, but will believe that 
he has carried them out as desired. More- 
over, though his mental attitude may be 
correct, and also his rehearsal of the orders, 
the habit of a lifetime will prove too strong, 
and he will not be content until he feels 
conscious of impressions, however falla- 
cious these may be, that he has fulfilled the 
instructions given him. This, of course, 
means that he is trusting to his own 
imperfect judgment again, and so reverting 
to his old bad habits. Now he must not put 
his own construction upon the instructions 
given by the teacher: — since such con- 
struction will be drawn from the faulty 
sensations which he was accustomed to 



KINESTHETIC SYSTEMS 197 

experience in his imperfectly educated 
state — nor must he, at first, make any 
endeavour to satisfy himself as to whether 
the exercise itself has been correctly per- 
formed. Until his powers of muscular 
appreciation infallibly recognize the new 
correct muscular co-ordinations, he must 
be guided solely by his teacher, and must 
learn to rehearse the instructions he re- 
ceives without attempting (as he under- 
stands it) to carry them out. With a pupil 
who is mentally receptive, and who ade- 
quately employs his power of inhibition 
prior to the correct rehearsal of the orders, 
a skilful teacher may almost perform mir- 
acles. For the time being, the pupil places 
his entire muscular system under the con- 
trol of his conscious will, directing himself 
solely according to the suggestion afforded 
by the orders of the teacher. " 

Much has been heard during recent years 
of physical deterioration, and manifold sug- 
gestions have been made as to its causes 
and the remedies to be adopted. The matter 
is a simple one. 



198 RE-EDUCATION OF THE 

The Kinaesthetic Systems concerned with 
correct and healthy bodily movements and 
postures have become demoralized by the 
habits engendered in the schoolroom through 
the restraint enforced at a time when 
natural activity should have been encouraged 
and scientifically directed, and in the crouch- 
ing positions necessitated by useless and 
irrational deskwork. Muscular and Nervous 
Systems, the mechanisms of physical exist- 
ence, have become deteriorated by lack of 
activity in correct modes, and through 
failure of the circulatory fluid — vitiated 
through its inability to secure full co-opera- 
tion of the all-important respiratory func- 
tions — to maintain health-giving metabolic 
activity. 

The method of Ee-education of the 
Kinaesthetic System involved in the develop- 
ment, and the assured continuance of Eobust 
Physical Well-being which is here explained, 



KINESTHETIC SYSTEMS 199 

is offered as an effectual and rational means 
of removing the effects of those faulty child 
and adolescent modes of existence to which 
reference has been made, since it ensures 
the performance, by each part of the mus- 
cular mechanism, of its own specific function, 
in proper co-ordination with the other parts. 



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